


My Grave, My Wedding Bed

by noodlefrog



Series: Close Enough to Human [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 18th Century, Aziraphale Has a Penis (Good Omens), Ballroom Dancing, Clothed Sex, Coitus Interruptus, Cold-Blooded Crowley (Good Omens), Consent Checking, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Don't copy to another site, Explicit Sexual Content, First Kiss, Historical, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Missing Scene, Mutual Pining, Not Britpicked, Other, Pre-Relationship, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Stockholm, Strong Aziraphale (Good Omens), Sweden - Freeform, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vaginal Fingering, even though there will be sex nothing was really settled, gratuitous descriptions of theatre architecture, the gavotte
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:27:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21922903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlefrog/pseuds/noodlefrog
Summary: Crowley looked away, keenly aware of how hot his face was under the mask. “You wanted to dance.”“I did. I... still do.” Aziraphale sighed. “It's just... well, we can't. We can't.”“We're not us tonight, remember? We're them. Anything they can do, we can do.”Crowley caught sight of the angel's eyes and his inhuman heart began to beat so loudly in his ears he couldn't hear the music anymore. There it was again. That mischief.“I may have an idea,” Aziraphale breathed. He straightened his waistcoat, tugged his cravat a little tighter, and gave an excited little wiggle that sent a jolt of pure electricity along Crowley's spine. He backed away slowly, leaving his cup on the table, and stared at Crowley as though he could see right through the lace panels in the demon's mask and into his eyes.It's a century for revolution, and Crowley and Aziraphale have been assigned to work in Stockholm, Sweden during the winter. The last masquerade ball of the season presents an ideal opportunity for both wiling and thwarting, but there's more wiling happening that night than what Crowley had planned.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Close Enough to Human [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1578430
Comments: 386
Kudos: 241
Collections: Good Omens (Complete works)





	1. Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> Did _Hot Days, Mad Blood_ need a multi chapter sequel? Who knows. It has one now.
> 
> Title taken from Act 1, Scene 5 of _Romeo and Juliet_ when Juliet decides that if she can't marry the young man she met at the masquerade, she won't marry anyone else as long as she lives.  
> 
> 
> _Go ask his name: if he be married,_
> 
> _My grave is like to be my wedding bed._
>
>> This fic currently has the tag "rating may change." ~~If it does, it'll be because it dropped down from M to T because I decide to save certain scenes for a later fic in this series. This will not be an E rated fic.~~ Y'all, I'm so sorry, I've started writing that scene and it might be E rated. It will **not** be rated T. 😳 Oops, haven't ever written smut before, may have accidentally awakened something in myself, y'all know how it goes.
> 
>   
> The above paragraph has been left intact as historical evidence of my gradual realization that not only _can_ I write smut, I struggle to write smut that isn't too graphic for an M. 

**Stockholm, 1792**

Crowley paced the floor of the little flat, careful to keep his own footsteps light, listening intently. It wasn’t exactly loud here, but he found himself resenting the unimportant background noise—the crackle of the fire in the little stove, the sound of horses and foot traffic on the street outside—all the things he had to work to tune out. He was supposed to be listening for the kettle, supposed to be anticipating the moment just before the gentle simmer became a boil. He was supposed to be listening so he could catch it just before it grew too hot to be of any use, hot enough to burn and ruin. There was an easier way to ensure it came out right, of course. It could be finished in less time than it took his unnecessary heart to beat, but then there’d be a tang of power to it that even the bitterness of the coffee couldn’t cover. This had to be done right. He was supposed to be listening for the kettle, but he was listening for something else, something so muffled he was straining to hear it even with his better-than-human hearing.

He’d stayed in other lodgings where he’d had to be close to other people, of course. He was used to it by now. Thousands of inns and boarding houses. Ramshackle dwellings on too-crowded streets. Tents in fields surrounded by hundreds of other tents. He’d stayed in flats above shops more times than he could count, and every time before this one he’d learned to let the noise and bustle of humanity beneath his feet fade away until he couldn’t hear it anymore. This was his first time staying in a flat over a _bookshop_ , though, and he had nothing to tune out because the place was silent as a tomb.

The quiet made his struggle to hear what was going on down there all the more frustrating. He had very few clues to go on. There would be the occasional creak of a floorboard, though he couldn’t always tell if it came from a footstep or simple settling of the building. He also caught the odd snippet of speech, all in Swedish and most of it in an unfamiliar cadence—the shopkeeper, he presumed. Once or twice, though, he’d heard something from the other speaker downstairs, too muffled to make out the exact words, but distinct enough to confirm for his ears what his more demonic senses had already told him. Now, it was all down to the timing. He was confident he’d hear the bell above the door when it rang, but by then it might be too late.

The thing was, there was an angel in the bookshop one floor below his flat. _The_ angel. One floor apart, and Crowley was making coffee. When he’d first sensed Aziraphale’s presence, when he’d heard the bell ring downstairs, he’d taken a moment to panic, a second moment to strategize, and a third moment to panic again about what _kind_ of coffee to make as a part of said strategy. Crowley liked it all, but he had a particular taste for the Turkish method. Aziraphale tended to tease Crowley for how many of the tiny cups of the thick, strong coffee he could put away over the course of a lunch. The angel was a bit more discerning in his preferences, and the way he closed his eyes and sighed when one of the coffee houses got it exactly right made it more than worth it to go to the extra work of brewing it the human way.

The thing was, they’d both been in Stockholm for two weeks now. They’d met up soon after Crowley had arrived to see where matters stood regarding the Arrangement. It was to be another one of those open-ended projects for them both, one of the ones where their supervisors told them to accomplish something vague but left the specifics of how to bless or to tempt up to them.

Aziraphale, for his part, had been sent here to encourage religious tolerance. As for Crowley, well. It was the century for revolution, wasn’t it? America, France, Haiti… it had been a busy century for him, at least on paper. Sure, he nudged a person towards discontent and dissatisfaction here and there, but as usual, the humans had been doing most of the work themselves. There was something thrilling about being close at hand when the mortals with their tiny lives smashed down the old orders, chose their own paths, rose up against all they had been told to be. It was something that, at least on the surface, should be what the Legions of the Fallen should relate to, but it was also something that Crowley knew he could never write about in his reports to Dagon. To Hell, revolution was nothing more than another idea to be obedient to. Besides, all they cared about was the body count, the carnage, the potential for sin in the chaos. As such, Crowley had been sent here to stir up that now-familiar unrest and discord.

Instead, most of what he’d been doing since he arrived had involved alternating between sitting in front of his fire wrapped in a blanket and complaining about how cold it was. Had he known in advance that they were both about to be sent somewhere _fucking freezing_ this time— _what was Hell doing sending a reptile like him to Sweden in_ March, _if they wanted him dead there were easier ways_ —Crowley probably would have looked into the possibility of passing this temptation off on the angel.

But the thing was… neither of them had left the city yet, even after they’d realized this had been a job that could be done by one. They just stayed here… and kept meeting. Not every day, of course, and none of it planned. Every time they’d crossed paths since that initial conversation had been by coincidence. Ostensibly.

This, though. This was different. Aziraphale was _here_ , one floor below his feet, browsing in a bookshop. One floor below a flat inhabited by a demon. He had to know, right? After all, Crowley had been able to sense the angel before he’d even reached the bookshop door. Aziraphale had to know where he was, who he was near. And _yes_ , Crowley might have had a momentary flight of fancy when selecting his lodgings in the city, _might have_ thought about the kind of places Aziraphale was likely to want to visit, but there was more than one used bookshop in Stockholm. The angel had come here, _here_ of all places, on purpose. Crowley would be damned a second time if he didn’t press his advantage while he had it.

Crowley took the kettle off of the stove and poured the water—hot, but not enough to burn the beans—into the top of an enamelware coffeepot on the kitchen table. It would be delicious, he knew. He’d roasted the beans himself, ground them himself, and put the fear of himself into the cloth filter until it knew better than to let any errant grounds slip through the weave. As the aroma of brewing coffee filled the flat, he listened again and waited. Almost on reflex, he placed two cups on the tabletop. _Has to look natural_ , he thought as he put one of them back, _and besides, he might not even agree._

The bell above the shop door tinkled, and Crowley went into action. Bracing himself for the cold winds just outside, he stepped out onto the narrow stairs between his flat and the street, leaving the door open behind him.

“Angel!” He called, leaning on the banister as if this was all very casual, as if the two of them met on the stairs up to Crowley’s flat every day. As if the metal wasn’t freezing cold against his arm, even through the fabric of his sleeve.

Aziraphale stopped outside the shop door and turned on his heel. Bundled up as he was in his coat and hat, all lined with plush fur the color of ivory, all Crowley could see of the angel was his face. He was flushed pink from the cold and wearing an expression of surprise that would have been believable had Crowley not spent the last half hour fixating on their proximity to one another.

The angel gasped, “Crowley! What in Heaven’s name are you doing up there?”

“In Heaven’s name? Not a thing.” He was briefly pleased with himself for starting out with such a quick, confident line. As usual, he immediately found another, far more awkward thing to say. “In my flat, though, I was. Well, er. Living? I live here.”

_Silver tongue, as always, Crowley,_ he thought.

“Causing trouble, I expect,” Aziraphale grumbled, clutching his arms tighter to his chest. Looking past the thick fur at his cuffs, Crowley could see he was holding a small stack of books bound together with twine.

“Not at the present moment,” He mused, and Aziraphale raised his eyebrows, “Though the near future is looking promising.”

The angel squared his shoulders. “What are you plotting, devil?”

Crowley shifted his weight to lean more of his back against the wall of the stairwell, peeling his sleeve away from the icy banister and gazing down at Aziraphale in cool disinterest. “Why? Are you going to try to s-sstop me?” A poorly timed shiver brought out his hiss, and Crowley fought the urge to wince. _Cool and disinterested. Right. Well done._

“What are you doing out of doors in your shirtsleeves, you foolish serpent?” The angel snipped, and Crowley really shouldn’t his fussing quite so endearing, but when had he ever been able to resist doing what he shouldn’t?

“Checking on why there’s an angel snooping around my flat.”

“I assure you I have no interest whatsoever in… whatever it is you’re doing in your _lair_ ,” Aziraphale’s voice was dry and brisk, but Crowley had learned well enough by this point to read the angel’s body language more closely than he ever had a printed book. Seeing him twist the twine bow between his gloved fingers, Crowley reminded himself of the dangers of being too direct with this. There were rules he had to follow— _never point out the obvious thing, always have a pretext, don’t try to make him question himself_ —and he couldn’t afford to push too hard or too fast.

“My _lair_ , is it?” He drawled. “Haven’t had a proper lair in… what? Three centuries, probably.”

“Semantics.”

“No, no. I think you’re really onto something here, angel,” he said, tensing his shoulders to try to resist another strong shiver, “I think I _deserve_ a lair.”

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes, looking between Crowley and the open door behind him. “Is that… coffee I smell?”

“Might be. You sure it isn’t the smell of… evil?” He squirmed slightly, bouncing a leg to try to keep his blood flowing. “Evil deeds happening in my evil lair?”

“I’m fairly sure it’s coffee, dear boy,” Aziraphale sighed, his breath escaping in a cloudy white puff. His eyes traced those familiar, anxious paths—first flicking upwards, then behind him, to Crowley, and back again. Crowley watched the angel’s face as he worked through his decision, and he bit his lip to suppress a smile when Aziraphale dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Though… it couldn’t hurt to investigate, could it?”

He wondered, as he had many times before, if Aziraphale knew just how much power he held. He must have some kind of idea, the bastard. _Hamlet_. Hadn’t even had to say a word and Crowley had all but tripped over himself in his haste to please him. This moment, though, what the angel was doing right now, was completely unfair. Looking up at Crowley through his eyelashes, snowflakes melting on his pink cheeks, standing at the foot of the stairs going up to _Crowley’s flat_ … what an utter bastard. Did he have any idea that if he asked Crowley for something right now— _anything, didn’t matter how ridiculous, how humiliating, how dangerous_ —it would be his?

There was an expression Aziraphale made when he figured out some clever way to justify doing exactly what he wanted, an expression that was the perfect marriage of innocence and mischief. That smirk, the quirk of his eyebrows, those wide eyes… Crowley usually only dared to think about it when he was alone and tipsy and willing to let himself pretend that someday the thing the angel would want would be _him_. Thank Satan he could remind himself that all the angel was after right now was a cup of coffee, because this was exactly the kind of scenario that would haunt his wanking hours for centuries to come.

Unable to handle looking at him anymore, Crowley slipped back into the warmth of his flat. He’d done what he could, and now it was up to Aziraphale to make his decision. How many thousands of times had they done this? There was an art to it that Crowley had practiced over the millennia, a proper series of steps. Make an offer of something Aziraphale wants but won’t let himself have—a drink, food, a friend, someone to share the burden of their jobs—and then step back to let him consider it. Reframe the issue so it sounds angelic for Aziraphale to do whatever it is that he wants to do anyway. Never let him see how much the answer, be it yes or no, would mean to Crowley. It has to be casual. It has to be something that feels small. The trick was framing the offer in a way that gave plausible deniability to both their superiors and to Aziraphale himself. Never make him feel like a bad angel for doing something he likes. He hears enough of that as it is.

If doing this counted as a temptation, it was a gentle one. Not a temptation leading him towards Hell, never there, only ever toward things that would make him happy. The angel deserved things that made him happy. Heaven was too cold, too empty for a creature like Aziraphale, and if their words had gotten in his head and made him think he didn’t deserve comfort or joy or fun, someone had to convince him otherwise.

Although heard the sound of feet following him up the stairs, he still had a quiet, nagging fear that if he turned around the angel would be gone. He stood at the stove, staring at his kettle, and only turned around once he’d heard the click of a lock. Aziraphale stood in the kitchen, not ten paces away, and Crowley searched his brain for something dismissive and petty to say to make him stop feeling like he needed to close that distance.

“Take that ridiculous coat off. You look like a polar bear walking on his hind legs,” Crowley complained, not mentioning the fact that the only reason why he wanted the angel out of his disgustingly adorable furry coat was so he could get a peek at whatever garish concoction of satin and lace he was wearing underneath it.

Aziraphale gave him a tut and an annoyed look but hung his overcoat and hat by the door anyway. _Not satin at all_ , Crowley thought, risking a glance back at the angel as he pretended to hunt for the cup he’d placed in his cabinet mere minutes earlier. Wool, by the looks of it. Blue and white, with applique all around the seams. White stockings to the knee. Lace at the cuffs, as he knew there would be, rustling as the angel pulled off his gloves. Crowley nearly dropped the cup once he got ahold of it.

“Careful, dear boy,” Aziraphale said, slipping into one of the chairs at the table. Crowley had a momentary panic because he couldn’t remember why this flat had two chairs—had there always been two, or had he manifested one out of the same desperate lunacy that made him decide to get a flat above a bookshop in the first place?

“Shut it,” He grumbled, dropping into the chair opposite him and sliding the second cup across the table. After banishing the grounds, he poured himself a cup of coffee. That was a rude thing to do, wasn’t it? Someone who was _completely fucking gone_ over his guest wouldn’t pour himself one first, would he?

Aziraphale reached across the table for the pot, turning it around to look at it before pouring his own cup. As he took the first sip, Crowley saw him laugh behind the rim.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just surprised by your coffee pot, that’s all.”

Crowley looked at it, then back up at Aziraphale. “I don’t get it. It’s… just a regular pot. Enamelware, bit up top for the filter. Normal coffee pot.”

“With no snakes,” Aziraphale said, turning the glossy black pot around to show Crowley the flowers painted on the other side, “Is it lost? Are you sure it’s yours?”

He took a drink of his coffee and set the cup back down a bit harder than he meant to. “Those are apple blossoms.”

“Naturally.” The angel took a long sip, seemingly savoring the flavor. “Did you roast the beans yourself?”

“Naturally. What do you take me for, some kind of monster?”

“Yes, but thankfully for me, not the kind of monster to serve me burnt beans.”

“The horror.”

Aziraphale settled his cup into the center of his saucer, straightening it by its handle to line it up with some unseen marker. “You owe it to me, you know.”

“Why’s that, angel?”

He looked up from his cup and into Crowley’s face, his lips pursed. “1773.”

“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” Crowley groaned, “It’s been twenty bloody years.”

“Nineteen, if we’re counting,” He said, the crispness of his voice sharpening into what could only be described as _bitchiness_ , “I couldn’t get a decent cup of tea in that wretched city for _months_ because of you, you fiend. It was bad enough I was stuck in the bloody colonies, and then you had to go work your… your _demonic mischief_.”

“I told you then, and I tell you now— _how the Heaven was I supposed to know that ship was carrying tea_? I told them to cause a little trouble, do a little property damage…”

“Crowley, you and I both know you were right there with them, hurling crates in the harbor.”

He grinned. “Couldn’t let the humans have all the fun, could I?”

“Was it, though? Was it _fun_ for you?”

“…a bit, yeah.”

“Was it _worth it_?”

_Was it worth you going into a sulk and ignoring me for half a year_? Crowley thought, Not particularly. _Was it worth it to see your face when I dropped in with a crate just for you_? He wasn’t sure, but it certainly made him feel better about the whole affair.

“Well…” He began, stalling while he tried to remember some part of that trip that hadn’t been dismal for the angel, “I mean, they still had pretty good beer, at least.”

“ _For now_. Mark my words, Crowley. Give it a century or two and those…” Aziraphale paused, summoning the necessary disdain, “ _Americans_ … will manage to ruin alcohol, too.”

They slipped into a more companionable silence, drinking their coffee together while Crowley familiarized himself with the pattern of the wood grain on the tabletop. He reached the bottom of his cup before the angel did, just a mouthful or two left until it was empty. He rolled the cup between his palms, hesitant to finish drinking. Right now, the pretext they had for being here was “ _coffee_ ”—when that was finished, Aziraphale would have to leave. It had to be casual. It had to be small. It had to not mean anything.

“I was sure you were going to have made more of that coffee you liked so much last time,” Aziraphale finally said, smiling, “the kind that’s stiff enough to let your spoon stand up straight in the cup.”

“D’you want some?” Crowley asked, starting to get up, “I have a _cezve_ here…”

“No, no, that’s quite alright.” He poured himself a second cup. “What you’ve made is rather tasty, I have to admit.”

_Ah, so we’re in this for the duration of the pot,_ Crowley thought, _not just the cup._ He drained the dregs of his coffee and waved a hand at Aziraphale to pass him the pot when he was done pouring.

“Did you know,” Aziraphale asked, handing it over, “that King Gustav is convinced this stuff is poisonous?”

“What, coffee? Really?”

“Really.” He took a delicate sip. “I was able to get an audience with him.”

“Oh, is that right? Good for you.”

“While we were talking, he mentioned something to me, and I wondered…”

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing. It’s silly.” Aziraphale looked at him, and then back down at his hands.

“Out with it, angel.”

“Well, he’s decided to do an experiment.”

“Oh, man of science, is he?” Crowley snorted. “What, has he got a bunch of rats up at the palace drinking out of little coffee cups?”

“No, you ridiculous creature.” His tone was chiding, but Crowley could see the amusement in his eyes. “Not everyone tries to solve their problems with a small army of rodents.”

“It’s worked before, and it will work again.” Crowley looked him up and down, paying careful attention to his hands. He wasn’t spinning his ring, and he hadn’t fussed with his clothes since he’d first taken his coat off. The angel was in a good mood, then, relaxed… and a proper target for a bit of winding up. “I think you’re just jealous that they like me better than you.”

Aziraphale’s mouth fell open into a perfect little _O_. “Jealous? Of the affection of _rats_?”

“Really? 1284, Germany. What do you call that?”

“That wasn’t _jealousy_ , Crowley! It was… irritation at professional incompetence.”

“ _Professional incompetence_? Really?” He set down his cup and leaned across the table. “You lost the coin toss. It was your temptation, fair and square.”

“I know that. I’m simply stating that in not every circumstance is a large horde of rats _necessary_ to achieve results, and—I’m sorry, I have to say it.” The angel closed his eyes and tugged the ruffles at his sleeve a bit straighter. “Those rats were bad at their jobs.”

“Unbelievable. I lend you my rat army, you let half of them _drown_ , and now you’re insulting their memory _five hundred years_ later. How dare you. Those rats are suffering in rat Hell as we speak. Have a little respect.”

“Why are we even talking about rats?” Aziraphale snipped.

“The King’s been blowing the Swedish budget on tiny rat-sized coffee cups trying to figure out if it’ll kill them.”

“ _Yes_! That’s it!”

“…Wait, really?”

“No, you idiot. _Coffee_. We were talking about coffee. The experiment.”

“So, no rats?”

“ _No_. And stop interrupting.” Aziraphale took a pointed sip. “Prisoners. Two of them. He told them he’d spare them the death penalty if they participated in his experiment. One of them takes three pots a day of coffee, the other of tea. He’s waiting to see which one dies first.”

“Well that’s just ridiculous.”

“I’d been about to ask if that was…” He looked at Crowley and shook his head, “one of yours. It seems your style.”

His style? Crowley blinked. _What’s that supposed to mean_?

“You don’t go to Hell for giving people free coffee, angel.”

“Ah, but he _thinks_ it’s poisonous.” He wiggled his fingers. “It’s attempted murder, even though he has no idea it won’t work. It’s still a sin even if the worst that happens is that the prisoners get tired of drinking it, because the _intent_ matters. An excellent temptation if I ever saw one.”

_There are… some implications there._ If he tried to chase those to their ideological root, Crowley could see this conversation going one of two ways: either they’d wind up in a spirited theological debate lasting well into the afternoon, or he’d tread on one of those contradictions Aziraphale liked to hold onto and never look too closely at, and he’d scare the angel off. Right now, it was nine in the morning and he was too sober to find either option very appealing.

Crowley took a drink, making sure to slurp loud enough to earn himself a chastising look. “It’s a bad experiment, is what it is. I mean, shouldn’t one of them be drinking water or something? What if tea was actually the thing killing people?”

“Have you _had_ the tea here, dear boy?” Aziraphale asked, and visibly shuddered, “I’d be surprised if it wasn’t.”

“Lucky you have someone around who’ll let you drink his coffee, then.”

The angel set his cup down and folded his hands on the table. “Yes…”

He had the distinct look about him like there was something else he wanted to say, and Crowley wondered if it was something to do with the Arrangement, or something personal. The line between the two had grown increasingly blurry in recent years, though of course that was something they could never talk about in such a direct way. Whatever it was, though, Crowley was willing to wait for it. The coffee pot wouldn’t run dry until he was ready.

“That isn’t the only thing I heard at the palace,” Aziraphale began, “I think I might have found an excellent opportunity to deliver a blessing.”

_Ah. About the Arrangement, then,_ Crowley thought, _not that he could even say the word out loud yet_. He lifted his cup to his lips and made a noise to encourage the angel to continue.

“I’m sure you’re familiar with the King’s balls?”

“Mmmng…” He said, half-drowning, “…not personally, no.”

“Oh!” Aziraphale brightened. “I’ve been told they’re some of the finest in this part of the continent!”

“…Is that right? Good for Gustav, I guess.”

“I asked around, and I heard that if you don’t do anything else while you’re in Stockholm, you can’t miss the balls. And I was thinking, well, since there’s only one left…”

All Crowley could say was, “What happened to the other one?”

“Ah,” Aziraphale sighed, “Cancelled for bad weather. The one tonight is the last one of the season.”

Oh. _Oh_. Right. One of these days, Aziraphale was going to discorporate him like this.

“And these balls,” Crowley said, his words coming out muffled behind the knuckles he was pressing up against his lips, “Would you say they’re… big, majestic things?”

“Oh, yes! That’s why I thought I might… well, the whole court will be there. It seemed like an ideal opportunity to… why are you laughing?” Aziraphale looked across the table and took in the sight of the silently shaking demon across from him, and after a moment’s confusion, his cheeks pinked. “ _Crowley!_ That’s—I can’t— _you are nearly six thousand years old, you_ —how are you this juvenile if you have _literally_ never been a child?”

“Don’t—don’t mind me, go on,” He gasped, “You were talking about the balls?”

“The _masked_ ball. Singular. That I will be attending tonight.” He stood up from the table, his mouth working hard to stay pressed into a flat line. “You don’t have to, of course, if you’d rather… I’m sure you have a lot on your plate, being an absolute _menace_ and all that.”

Crowley watched him stuff himself back inside that warm-looking, furry coat and fetch his parcel of books from the top of the credenza. “I have to go. I have a costume to put together, since it is a _masquerade_ I’m attending. At the Royal Opera House. Tonight. Beginning just after sundown. Mind how you go.” Aziraphale gave him one last, pointed look and then swept outside. As the lock clicked behind him, Crowley could have sworn he heard a muffled snort.

The usual sting of Aziraphale’s departure was lessened by Crowley’s growing awareness that he’d been invited—in a roundabout, indirect, very _Aziraphale_ way—to attend a ball with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Notes:**  
>  Shout out to [CynSyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynSyn/pseuds/CynSyn) for bantering with me about Crowley being involved in the Boston Tea Party and pissing off Aziraphale.
> 
> 1284 is the current supposed year for the disappearance of the children of Hamlin in Germany (of Pied Piper fame). I'm absolutely not implying Aziraphale stole a bunch of children, but I am implying he let a creepy pipe player run off with the rats Crowley lent him.
> 
> King Gustav III of Sweden's Coffee Experiment is a real historical event. He, and other Swedish rulers, tried banning coffee several times. This fic happened to fall within one of the windows where coffee was legal, otherwise Crowley would 1000% be a coffee bean bootlegger. All the articles I've found about the coffee experiment also touch on other significant events that will be discussed in this fic, so consider delaying reading those if you aren't already familiar with this part of Swedish history and want a totally surprising experience.
> 
> Please don't @ me if you're a Swedish tea fan. I read a historical account from a British man named Dr. Thomas Thomson who visited Sweden and went on an absolute little fit about their tea in 1812, saying among other things, "You can get coffee in the meanest peasant's house and it is always excellent... but Swedish tea is just as bad as their coffee is good". It seemed delightfully petty and Aziraphale-like to complain about it, sorry Sweden. Nothing personal.


	2. Masks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“No one knows us here. You could… stop being you. I could stop being me. We could be them, just for the night.”_
> 
> _“You’re saying we… pretend to be human?”_
> 
> _“Look around. Everyone’s pretending to be something they’re not. Why not us?”_
> 
> * * *
> 
>   
> An angel and a demon devise a game to play together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I hadn't just gone ahead and published this chapter, I would have ended up fiddling with it for weeks. 
> 
> Happy New Year, everyone! I hope 2020 treats you all kindly.

Crowley spent most of the remainder of the day at his kitchen table disproving King Gustav’s coffee paranoia. He was a demon, sure, but he could be discorporated in many of the same ways that humans could die, and he felt fine six pots of coffee later. Jittery, maybe, but fine. He had a task to do, the kind of task that would be much more efficient centuries in the future after he’d taken the time to invent Pinterest, though it would also become more of a time-suck as well. At present, though, he had to work with what he had. Crowley summoned a stack of illustrations, newspapers, and print ads and began to research.

Although he was ostensibly supposed to be trying to figure out what costume to wear himself, his thoughts kept drifting towards speculation of just what in Heaven Aziraphale would come dressed as. As much as he would deny it if asked, the angel’s tastes ran in a distinctly hedonistic direction and a costume ball like this could be the perfect excuse for him to dress as sumptuously as he wanted without worrying how close he came to committing sins of pride or greed. “ _Blending in with the humans_ ” had been Aziraphale’s go-to line for explaining his love of alcohol, food, fine clothes, expensive books… Crowley wondered sometimes if he believed it himself, or if in the privacy of his own thoughts Aziraphale permitted himself the comfort of liking things for his own sake.

Given what he knew about his friend’s tastes, the costume he’d choose was likely to be breathtaking—though whether that would be breathtaking in a good way or not was yet to be seen. He was as likely to turn up as a vision dripping in gold as he was as a vision drowning in tartan. Worse yet, he might come dressed as some elaborate metaphor it would take ten bloody minutes to explain… _every time someone asked_. Flipping through his stack of miracled illustrations, Crowley saw the full scope of potential costumes Aziraphale could subject him to.

The ones that had him rolling his eyes the hardest were the humans who insisted on dressing up like abstract concepts. Some of them were almost tolerable—people calling themselves _justice_ or _victory_ seemed content to just wrap a bedsheet around themselves, carry a prop, and call it a day—but others were painfully trite. How does one make a costume to look like the concept of _progress_ , for example, without looking like an utter tit? If the reading Crowley was doing was truly representative of humanity’s achievement on that front, it didn’t seem possible. _Oh, couldn’t you tell?_ Aziraphale’s voice said in Crowley’s mind, _I’m dressed up as the Heavenly Virtue of_ Patentia _tonight, dear boy!_

If Crowley had to lay money on it, though, he would guess that Aziraphale would be unable to resist coming dressed as an angel. For a brief moment, Crowley toyed with the idea of going as a demon—what the humans imagined demons to look like, at least—but decided against it. Horns never really were his scene. Besides, while Crowley might later creatively recount the night’s events for his next report to Dagon, he had no intention of thinking about work or his bosses at the ball any more than he could help it. It would be one thing for Aziraphale to go around with a harp in hand and a pair of fake wings, but Crowley didn’t much feel like spending his free time reminding them both of the whole “opposite sides” business.

He eventually settled on going as a domino. All it really called for was a half-mask and a hood, and the rest was up to his discretion. The illustrations said it stood for _intrigue and mystery_ , but what it really stood for was, “ _I’m here to get drunk and shag a stranger, and not have to explain my bloody costume to anyone while I’m at it._ ” That’s all these costume balls were, really. A pretext for affairs, and between the flimsy disguises and the rivers of alcohol there was built-in plausible deniability for anything that happened before the party broke up at dawn. Of course, Crowley didn’t want to shag any of the humans there, but he did have an image to uphold as someone who looked like he _could_ , if he wanted. There were certain things expected of a demon, after all.

When the time came, he dressed himself with a wave of his hand: black silk tailcoat, oxblood cravat, polished riding boots that came up to the knee, and a half-cape with a hood. He made the mask with panels of black mesh behind the eyeholes so he could go without his sunglasses for the night. As a last-minute addition, he trimmed his coat with a border of applique serpents—after all, if he wound up spending the whole night mocking Aziraphale’s tin-plate halo or whatever it was he decided to wear, the least Crowley could do was provide the angel some ammunition of his own to return fire.

* * *

  
The Royal Opera House was a beacon in the fading dusk, lamplight bleeding from its windows and shining in amber pools on the stone of its columns and on the blanketing snow outside. The human crowd had already descended by the time Crowley arrived, a line of carriages winding around the square and more than a few revelers braving the cutting winds to make it there on foot. Wheels and hooves and human feet had cut into the day’s snowfall, leaving twisting, dark grooves that revealed the grime of the street below.

Crowley emerged from the warm bubble of his hired carriage and into the frigid street. The opera house was close enough to his flat that on a warmer day he could have walked, but although the snow had stopped falling much earlier in the day, the temperature was plunging now that the sun was going down, and he had no desire to get hypothermia right before meeting the angel. In spite of the wool overcoat and scarf he’d layered over his costume, his body simply did not keep heat. Even before reaching the foot of the stairs he found himself having to warm his hands with puffs of frosty breath.

Once inside, Crowley found himself faced with an unexpected problem. He was able to sense an angelic presence in the opera house, knew it to be Aziraphale’s, but he couldn’t immediately spot him. He was well-practiced at finding him using his demonic senses, almost like he carried a compass that pointed always towards Aziraphale, but it was a trick that worked best over long distances. Once he got closer, though, he usually had to turn to his eyes and ears to pick the angel out of a crowd.

The problem was in the nature of angelic—and demonic—presence itself. Aziraphale was human-shaped while on Earth, and as a result was human-sized. His corporation was old and loved and comfortable, like a sofa with a divot in it that had formed around the shape of him after centuries of use, and at times it was easy for Crowley to forget that those blond curls and captivating, dangerous eyes weren’t _really_ Aziraphale at all. They both tucked their wings away out of reality, sure, but that wasn’t all they tucked away. Aziraphale’s comfortable human form hid something much larger, much harder to look upon with human eyes, and it was that other form that Crowley perceived when he tried to find him using his demonic senses. At the moment, he could tell Aziraphale was somewhere in the building… but beyond that, he didn’t have any clue where the bastard had gotten off to.

How hard could it be to find one angel in a crowd full of humans? Under normal circumstances, not very hard at all. Crowley had trained his eyes over time to look for him amongst the masses. Platinum was not a common hair color among mortals of any region and tended to stand out. Besides, he was almost always wearing something white and supernaturally clean. Hard to miss, especially in places and times where the mortals had forgotten how hygiene worked.

It was only marginally more difficult to pick him out of _this_ crowd, with the humans all dressed in ridiculous costumes and masks that made them all sort of blur together, even more so than normal. Crowley paced the perimeter of the foyer, ignoring the dance floor in the center of the space—the one place he knew the angel _wouldn’t_ be—and kept his eyes out for white lace, cream silk, and feathers.

At one point, he spotted a pair of snowy white wings and a long robe and followed them through the crowd. Thankfully, he recognized the person as a human before he came up behind them to tap their shoulder. They were carrying a spear with a serpent impaled on it, crudely sculpted out of paper mâché and twisted around the shaft like a tasteless parody of the Rod of Asclepius. The snake’s body had bent under its own weight in a few places and flapped a little as the human spoke, and it would have been funny in a pathetic sort of way if it wasn’t also a bit unsettling. _Bloody Michael again_ , Crowley thought as he slipped back into the crowd. Moments later he heard the sound of fabric ripping and glass breaking as the human tripped over their own toga and dropped their drink.

He was almost to the point of using a miracle to find him— _too desperate, keep it casual, never let him see how much it means_ —when his search was interrupted by a polite, achingly familiar voice behind him.

“Excuse me?”

Crowley turned and, as he’d expected, saw Aziraphale. Seeing Aziraphale’s _costume_ , however, was rather more unexpected and left him feeling very grateful for the mask hiding his too-wide eyes. He could have easily passed the angel a dozen times in the crowd and never known, fixated as he was on looking for people dressed all in cream or white, but now that he saw him, he found he couldn’t look away.

From the top of his collar to the toes of his shoes, Aziraphale was dressed in velvet so dark it seemed black, save in those places where the lamplight hit him at just the right angle to reveal the deep blue. His mask, like Crowley’s, covered just the top half of his face and was bordered with silver stars. The longer he looked, the more stars he saw—on every silver button, sewn into his stockings, on the buckles of his shoes, even a few in his bloody _hair_. He was wearing a cape, a full-length one, made of twisting lengths of sheer fabric in vibrant greens, purples, and blues.

He shut his mouth and swallowed around the sudden dryness in his throat, searching for something to say and finding nothing.

“What the Heaven are you supposed to be dressed as?” He managed.

The visible half of Aziraphale’s face broke into a smile. “Ah, so it is you.” He turned on the spot, giving Crowley a better view of his cape, and bounced a little on the balls of his feet as he spoke. “I’m the Northern Lights!”

 _He didn’t… know, did he?_ It had never come up in conversation, Crowley made sure of that. That other angel he had once been might as well be a ghost, a creature with no name who left him only with flashes of memory of what it felt like to create instead of pull apart, and was definitely someone he avoided discussing with Aziraphale. Coincidence, obviously. Aziraphale didn’t know that he’d been among those in Heaven who hung them, but even still, the stars in his hair made him wonder. _Do you know, angel,_ he thought, _what it feels like to fly through an aurora? When the Earth was new, before the people… did we fly in the same sky_?

Crowley cleared his throat and let irritation color his voice, as though he had little time for the angel’s antics. “Of course you are.”

“What are you?” Aziraphale asked, giving him a long once-over.

“I’m… it’s nothing. I’m just wearing a mask. Doesn’t have to be a Thing.”

“Well, in any case, come along then,” he said, leading him around the side of the foyer, “I had a bit of trouble finding you among all the humans, I must admit. You are fairly… covered up.”

Crowley looked down at his own costume, and then at Aziraphale’s. “I’m still dressed like me, though.” The unspoken _unlike you_ caught in his throat.

“And so are a great number of the humans.” The angel gestured out to the crowd and for the first time, Crowley took notice of the kind of costumes on display outside of searching for things Aziraphale would potentially wear. Now that it had been pointed out to him, he was far from the only domino here—at least a dozen others he could see were wearing the black hoods and half masks.

“I guess that makes my disguise pretty successful, then.”

“Quite,” Aziraphale tutted, finding them both a spot in the line for the drinks table, “You know, I almost couldn’t find you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. I knew you had arrived, but it wasn’t until I noticed you miracle something that I figured out where you were.”

“Really. Go figure.” Crowley said, filing that tidbit away for future use.

“Do I want to know what it was you did?” Aziraphale asked, his eyes on a pair of servants carrying a large pot of boiling water. With a gesture of Crowley’s hand and a pulse of infernal power, the one who’d been about to stumble and scald the feet of half a dozen party guests found his balance and delivered the pot to the table without issue.

Crowley felt Aziraphale watching him, knew he was making that stupid expression he had whenever he saw the demon do something even mildly good, the one that made his insides do an uncomfortable twist of shame-pleasure. He had to cut this off before the silly angel decided to say something out loud. “What?” He muttered defensively, “I just want some _punsch_.”

The servants poured the hot water into a large serving bowl over the sugar loaf sitting inside. As the tall, white cone dissolved away, they mixed in a pitcher of spirits, sliced fruit, and spice. The scent of lemon and nutmeg wafted across the room, causing Aziraphale to close his eyes and gave a sigh that, under any other circumstances, would have sounded positively _wanton_. Crowley bit his lip and kept his gaze trained firmly over Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“I’m surprised,” he said, casting about for something to say to take his mind off it, “that you didn’t come dressed as an angel.”

“I _am_ an angel,” Aziraphale replied under his breath, “Anything I wear is me _dressing like an angel_.”

“You know what I meant. Like _they_ think an angel looks like.”

“Oh, but it’s so dreadfully inaccurate.”

“Trust me, I know. Do I look,” Crowley groused, turning his ankle to show off the sides of his boot, “like I have bloody _hooves_?”

“Precisely. And besides, I already have wings.” Aziraphale’s stage whisper was getting louder, but none of the humans around them seemed to care. “It would be ridiculous to wear a set of… of decorative ones.”

“Makes sense,” Crowley said, nodding, “I mean… you’re a real angel. Why waste your day off being a fake one?”

Aziraphale gave him a strange look as they reached the front of the queue and were handed cups of hot _punsch_ , but he did not bring up whatever was on his mind, and Crowley did not press.

Once Aziraphale had artfully assembled a plate of all the different snacks the party had to offer, the angel led them both up the main staircase to the second level of the foyer where a box had miraculously emptied of its previous occupants. They sat together human-watching for a while, taking turns making up names and backstories for the people talking and dancing below. Crowley particularly enjoyed coming up with ridiculous voices to give them, though not as much as he enjoyed watching Aziraphale laugh at the voices.

When King Gustav arrived with his entourage, Aziraphale tapped at the arm of Crowley’s chair to point him out. Enormous hat, enormous medal on his chest, bowing from everyone in the crowd who saw him… Crowley didn’t need the explanation, though he found himself gripping the arm of his chair just a bit harder regardless, thrilling at the momentary proximity of their hands. _Pathetic._

The king settled into a box of his own on the far end of the room, and as Aziraphale watched him talking and drinking with his advisors and attendants, a strange look of melancholy crossed over the angel’s face. Their conversation trailed off into silence as Aziraphale stared out over the edge of the railing, rolling his cup between his palms. It was still almost full, like he’d done little more than sip at it since he’d gotten it. Crowley followed his gaze, though he couldn’t spot what had drawn his attention. All he could see were the dancers in the center of the hall—parallel lines of humans, coming together in pairs to orbit one another and drift apart again.

After a long silence, the angel spoke up. “Do they dance Downstairs?”

Crowley turned to look at him, not at all expecting that turn in the conversation. “Sometimes. S’not good dancing, though.”

“Is it ever… like that?” Aziraphale asked, nodding down to the foyer below.

“Nah. The food’s shit, for one. And there’s almost always a stabbing or three.”

“But there are… parties? With dancing?” There was a strange quirk to his mouth, and he was watching Crowley’s face with curiosity in his eyes.

“Yeah… sometimes,” Crowley admitted, not sure where the angel was going with this, “Like I said, though. The dancing… it’s pretty awful. But yeah. There’s always a big end-of-the-millennia thing, and most of the demons who aren’t bobbing for souls or playing pin-the-pitchfork-on-the-human are out on the dance floor.”

Aziraphale blinked, like he was trying to figure out if Crowley was winding him up again. “I take it you’re usually out on the dance floor?”

“I usually try not to go.” He shrugged. “You know, I actually once paid a guy to summon me so I could leave early.”

“Do you… not enjoy it, then?”

“Parties, or parties in Hell?” Crowley asked, “Because things like this, they’re fine. Much less of a chance of getting bitten, for one. Parties in Hell are only almost tolerable after everyone’s too drunk to stand upright.”

“I meant, well… Specifically, the, ah. Dancing.”

“Oh… it’s alright, I guess. Why?”

Aziraphale took a long sip of his drink before answering. “I’ve seen you do it before.”

“Right. Well. You’ve seen how bad I am at it, then.”

“You look like you’re having fun with it.”

“It… can be.” Crowley paused, considering his words. “Have you ever…?”

“No,” Aziraphale said quickly, “I haven’t.”

“Not ever?”

“Angels don’t dance.”

“…ah. Right.”

Aziraphale held a mouthful of the _punsch_ in his mouth, closing his eyes. Whether he was savoring the taste or stalling for time, Crowley couldn’t say. Finally, he swallowed and asked, “I have swayed to music. A bit. Do you… think that counts?”

“Dunno. Do you want it to count?”

The angel looked back at him, considering. “I don’t know.”

Crowley wasn’t sure if the whole issue of angels not dancing was the result of a literal rule, or another case of those pricks Upstairs distancing themselves from anything they thought was below them. He didn’t ask for clarification. The guilt was already plain on Aziraphale’s face, as was, he was realizing… the _longing_. He stretched back into his chair, deepening his sprawl, and said in the most level voice he could manage, “I think it only counts if you want it to.”

Aziraphale gave a low chuckle. “I doubt it counts. It’s certainly not dancing like they’re doing down there, or like… well, what you did in Constantinople. Or in Belfast…”

“Before Patrick kicked me and all my snakey brethren out, you mean?” He grumbled, but when Aziraphale glanced his way, he was smiling against the rim of his glass.

The angel set his cup down on the side table and spread his fingers out against his breeches, smoothing wrinkles in the velvet that weren’t really there.

“Crowley…”

“Mm?”

“Do you ever…” He began, then shook his head, “No. You’ll think it’s foolish.”

“Maybe. I’d have to hear it first to tell.”

“It is foolish. Forget I said it. It’s… not a thing that could happen anyway.”

Crowley could feel his pulse in his throat, in the palm of his hands where he gripped his glass almost tight enough to crack it, so loud he wondered if Aziraphale could hear it. There were a number of things the angel could mean by that, many of which sent his imagination racing faster than he could pull it back.

“C’mon, angel.” His voice was weaker and softer than he’d intended, hinting at something he couldn’t say out loud, knowing that whatever Aziraphale was getting at wouldn’t be what he wanted him to say. He took a drink of _punsch_ , hoping the liquor and the heat would burn away the tenderness lining his throat and lungs, choking him. His second attempt at speaking came out louder. “You know I’ll just bother you ‘till you say it.”

Aziraphale wasn’t looking at him. He wasn’t even looking down at the foyer anymore. His gaze was fixed on his lap where his hands were twisting one of the ends of his cape like he wanted nothing more than to tear it apart. When he finally sighed and spoke, it was with a carefully light, casual tone. “Do you ever sometimes wish you could be one of them?”

Crowley opened and closed his mouth. _Of all the things_ … “What? One of the humans?” The angel gave a short nod in answer. Crowley tapped the arms of his chair with his fingertips, trying to figure out how to respond to a question like that. “Not really, nah. I’d miss the miracles. Tend to die fast, too, humans.”

“No, of course. It’s just…” Aziraphale sighed, glancing down at the dance floor again. “Well, they have very little to _do_ , haven’t they? Not a one of them, not even the king up there in his box, has the power we do. The… obligations we do. While I wouldn’t trade it, I must confess sometimes I get a bit…”

“Tired?”

“Quite.”

The thing Crowley wanted to say was a risk. If Aziraphale took it poorly, if sounded like Crowley was trying to get him to doubt the party line, or worse yet, if he thought it was some kind of temptation… he’d run. Still, though. Something was clearly on his mind, bothering him, making him stumble over his words and second-guess the things he wanted to say. There was clearly something he _wanted_ , and even if Crowley didn’t know what it was, he couldn’t sit here saying nothing.

He leaned forward in his chair until he was in Aziraphale’s peripheral vision again. This wasn’t the kind of thing to be said behind his back, like a whisper in his ear, and if the angel wasn’t ready to look at him full in the face yet, this would have to do.

“Then let’s be _humans_ , angel.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“No one knows us here. You could… stop being you. I could stop being me. We could be them, just for the night.”

“You’re saying we… pretend to be human?”

“Look around. Everyone’s pretending to be something they’re not. Why not us?”

Aziraphale looked at him sideways. “Are you suggesting we play a game?”

“Sure, if you want. That’s a thing humans do, right? Party games?”

“But Crowley.” The angel turned in his chair to look at him. “We pretend to be human all the time. We’re doing it right now.”

“For them,” he said, waving a dismissive hand at the crowd below, “sure. To blend in. I’m saying we pretend for _us_. You’ll be a human, I’ll be a human… just a couple of humans going to a party. No one to bless or tempt. Nothing at stake.”

Even with the half-mask, Crowley was familiar enough with Aziraphale’s thinking face to track the progress of the idea using only the cant of his lips. “No miracles?” He asked.

“No miracles.”

“What… what’s the point of the game?”

“To have fun,” Crowley said, taking another warming sip, “Good food, good drink. Good music. We’ll just enjoy ourselves for the night.”

“Well…” Aziraphale’s voice took on that tone that seemed to say _I’ve already made up my mind, but I want to feel like I took some convincing_. That gleam was back in his eye again, the one that drove Crowley mad. “It’s true, the food is quite good.”

“What could it hurt? We leave them to their own devices all the time. Besides, it could… I dunno. Give us a better perspective the next time we need to act like them to blend in.”

The angel’s voice brightened as he latched on to the excuse. “When you put it that way...”

“I know. I’m a genius, angel—”

“No.” Aziraphale cut him off, looking into Crowley’s eyes with a sudden flare of intensity that made him grateful for the way the mask hid his own from view.

“No?”

“Not _angel_. Not tonight.”

Crowley raised his glass, grinning. Aziraphale fetched his and mirrored him. “Humans, then?”

A pause. A flick of his eyes up to the ceiling. A ghost of a smile. Aziraphale tapped their glasses together. “Humans.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Note:**  
>  I did some reading up on how large quantities of _punsch_ would have been made for events like a ball, and y’all, it’s so extra. I love it. I found a recipe written in 1771 for how to make it aboard a ship for your crew, and those funky little sailors heated it up with red hot iron balls. The drama. The pageantry. Absolutely incredible.


	3. Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His eyes still closed, Aziraphale gave a contented sigh and said, “I know precisely what I want.”
> 
> That caught Crowley’s attention. Not what he _would_ want. Not something pretend, then, not something made up for the game for the sake of a human Aziraphale who would never exist. What he, the angel Aziraphale, _wants_.

“So.” Crowley folded his arms behind his head and stretched his long legs under the table—quite rudely too, he thought, to be so inconsiderate of the angel’s space.

“D’you want to have been born a human, or are you thinking we were turned mortal?”

“What’s the difference?” Aziraphale asked, looking up from the orange he was peeling. Crowley had been watching his hands as he rolled it against the table, softening the membranes inside it, and felt almost disappointed when the angel produced a small knife to open it up. He had some trick to it now, of cutting the ends and slicing halfway through the center so the whole thing could be unrolled flat, all the glistening sections open for the taking. It hadn’t always been this way. The trouble with a long life and a sharp memory, two things Crowley had in excess, was that you tended to remember things at the worst time. Crowley had been there the first time Aziraphale had eaten an orange. That first time, he hadn’t cared so much about keeping his hands clean.

“Time, for one,” he said, after a large inhale, “and I suppose it would change our expectations, too. If we were born human, that’d be all we knew.”

“We’d have… childhoods.” Aziraphale wiped the blade on his lacy handkerchief and put it away. “Families, probably. _Ancestors_. What a strange idea.”

“We wouldn’t know… all of this is real.” Crowley waved a hand up and down. “What came Before. What would come after.”

Crowley had meant it in terms of the freedom that idea offered, the distance from their two sides and all the trouble they caused. Aziraphale seemed to hear something different in it, though, and his face lit up in a bright smile. “An opportunity for faith!” He exclaimed. “ _Real_ human faith. Belief without having seen the proof.”

“Real human doubt, too.”

Aziraphale looked pensive as he raised an orange segment to his lips and chewed. Crowley waited for him to finish. “We wouldn’t have… lost something, if we were born human. But we’d have lived always knowing we would age and die.”

_The only difference that matters,_ Crowley thought before he could stop himself, _would be how soon I would have to stop being a coward and tell you_. If he had been born a human, he’d only have just the one mortal lifespan in which to get it right, not centuries to waste on fear. If, for another one of Her cruelties, God wanted to cast him out one more time, wanted to strip him and Aziraphale of their powers, their immortality… he’d have no more time to waste. He’d fall on his knees right then and there and let Aziraphale make whatever choice he wanted.

Crowley cleared his throat. “No need to get all maudlin. S’just a game.”

“Right.” Aziraphale nodded and busied his hands selecting another piece of orange. “Well, for simplicity’s sake, let’s say… oh, that we were born that way.”

“Oi. Save some for the game.” Crowley said with a look at the platter of snacks on the table between their two chairs. The angel had agreed to Crowley’s suggestion of a drinking game almost immediately, but had insisted on using food instead of alcohol, as _humans can’t miracle themselves sober, Crowley_. Daft bastard.

“Don’t be such a worrier, Crowley. If we run out, we can just…”

“Walk down there and get some?” He supplied, inclining his head towards the foyer below.

“Right.” Aziraphale sighed, pouting. “No miracles. Being human is harder than I thought.”

Crowley checked his pocket watch and snapped it closed again with a snort. “It’s only been ten minutes, an—Aziraphale.”

“Well, let’s get on with it, then,” he said, pointedly wiping his hands with the handkerchief, “since you’re timing me.”

“So.” Crowley slouched lower in his seat, spreading his legs and balancing his elbows on his thighs. Aziraphale watched him out of the corner of his eye and gave a disapproving cluck of his tongue. “Anything about your life—your human life, that is. Right?”

“Right. And if you’re wrong, you have to eat something.”

“And if I’m right…”

“Then I do.” As he carefully folded his handkerchief, the angel gave a wiggle that told Crowley that this was one game he’d be perfectly fine with losing.

“Wait. Before we start, I have a question.”

Aziraphale tucked the handkerchief away into the inner pocket of his coat and gave an exasperated sigh that sounded almost a bit fond. “Why am I not surprised by that?”

“If we were born human, we wouldn’t have any control over where or when or to what parents.”

“That tends to be how that goes, yes.”

“We’re to be guessing what one another would be like as humans, but if we’ve no control over it, how would we know?”

“It’s all pretend. We can just… speculate.”

“Yeah but see… the thing is. Let’s say you wanted to be a… a. I don’t know. A famous composer or something.” At that, Aziraphale wrinkled his nose. Crowley scowled at him. “I’m not eating anything for that, it wasn’t a guess. Just an example. But think about it. How many humans want that life for themselves? And how many actually get it?”

“What are you saying?”

“If I’m guessing what your human life is like, do I have to factor in random chance? Do we get a choice in who we are? Because the statistics favor…” He trailed off into a wordless sound, waiting for his vocabulary to catch up with his ideas. “I dunno. Shepherds. Serfs. Dying in a plague pit. What I’m saying is… S’not a fair shake. Most people don’t get the life they want.”

Aziraphale frowned, his hands twisted in his lap. “Let’s just say that, for the sake of the game, there’s no interference from chance. You get the life you want. Exactly the way you want it.” He swallowed, chasing away the fluttering tone in his voice. “Well. The life human-you would want.”

“Right,” Crowley said, grinding his jaw. He refused to let himself dwell on the images that came to his mind, unbidden and unwanted. Visions of a little plot for a garden in the sun, of a house with bookshelves built into the walls… of a bed big enough for two that was always warm. Visions of a life that would never be, not even within the relative safety of a game. “Ssure. Okay.”

He took a long drink of the _punsch_ and let the heat of it fill his mouth before he tried to speak again. They might not be playing this game using alcohol, but he was fairly certain he’d need to at least get a buzz going to survive it.

“Right. Uh. Me first, then, I guess. Umm… Human Aziraphale.” Crowley looked up from his cup and for a moment, he let himself drink his fill of the sight of the angel in velvet seated across from him. There were any number of things he could guess his companion would do if he’d never lived under the yoke of Heaven, but very few of those guesses were things he could say aloud. “Mmmm… books.” He managed.

“Books?”

“You’d have a lot of them. You’d read a lot.”

“That doesn’t count,” Aziraphale huffed, “I have a lot of books _now_ , I read a lot _now_. How is that different?”

“Alright, then.” He drummed his fingers against his knees. “You’d… write them.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. As much as I enjoy reading, I’ve never been much good with my own words, I’m afraid. I am content to leave that to the people who have that skill.” The angel nodded down at the plate of food. “Well, go on then.”

Crowley leaned forward and examined the tray of offerings, carefully selecting a grape to pop into his mouth, watching Aziraphale as he did. His mouth was bent into a slight frown as he considered his first question, and Crowley could imagine the way his brows must be furrowed under the starry half-mask he wore. The angel’s expression shifted into a smirk.

“You’d get on a lot better with horses as a human than you do now.”

“That’s a low bar.”

“Yes, but I’m right, aren’t I?”

“What makes you think I’d like horses more if they could kill me instead of just discorporating me?” Crowley asked, “Besides, those things are just… unsettling. Have you seen the schematics for them? They walk around on their fingertips, Aziraphale.”

“I didn’t say you’d like them better. I said they’d get along better with you. You once told me they can tell you’re a snake.” He gave a self-satisfied little wiggle. “I’d imagine that wouldn’t be a problem if you were mortal.”

“Fair.” Crowley found he couldn’t argue with that logic and ate a second grape. “You’d live somewhere with miserable weather so you could stay inside all the time.”

Aziraphale laughed and picked up a cube of cheese. “You’d travel. You wouldn’t want to sit still in the same spot your whole life.”

It felt like that should be the right guess, but there was something about it that still sounded wrong to Crowley’s ears. He hesitated, hand reaching for the plate, before giving in and grabbing a biscuit.

“You’d be a priest.” The aghast expression the angel gave him in answer was enough to make him nearly choke on the little sausage he ate in penance for suggesting such a thing.

He actually did choke on it a little once Aziraphale blithely declared, “I could see you as a lawyer.”

Crowley cackled. “Me? With one of the…” He waved his hand around his head to pantomime a wig.

“I’ve seen you wear one before.”

“Yeah, _for a temptation_.” His mouth hung slightly open, still stretched into a smile, as it occurred to him that Aziraphale might not just be taking the piss with that one. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am. It would offer you a lot of opportunities to be a scoundrel.”

He shook his head. “Maybe. But when have I _ever_ been that interested in following rules?”

“You make a good point, you…” Aziraphale cut himself short with an apologetic half-smile, and Crowley just knew that whatever he’d been about to say had been one of those little barbs at his being a _demon_ , or a _serpent_ , or a _fiend_ … one of those barbs that almost felt like an endearment after all these centuries. It did something strange to him to realize he wasn’t the only one choosing his words carefully tonight.

The angel reached over and took a bite of cake. Crowley looked away from his face to keep himself from staring at the way that pink tongue of his licked the tines of the fork clean. His eyes were drawn by movement under the table and he tilted his head to get a better look, pretending to be deep in thought about his next question. Sure enough, Aziraphale’s typical pleasant-mood-type wiggles he’d been engaging in since their game began were accompanied by a quietly bouncing leg under the table—precisely in time with the music playing down in the foyer. Crowley wondered if he was even aware that he was doing it.

_Indirect_ , he reminded himself, biting off the first question that came to mind before he could ask it. “You’d be an excellent cook.”

Aziraphale offered him a demure smile and shook his head. “I’m terrible at it, I’m afraid.”

“As an…” Crowley argued, then caught himself, “well, as you are now.”

“Are you saying it’s a human thing, being good at cooking?”

He shrugged. “You certainly seem to like what they do.”

“You and I both know they’re not… _universally talented_ ,” Aziraphale said, making a face that told Crowley he was remembering some disappointing meal, “Being mortal is no guarantee of skill.”

“M’not talking about them.” Crowley took a drink of his _punsch_ , and Aziraphale mirrored him, his cup lingering at his lips while he listened to the demon’s points. “I’m talking about you. What’s that you’re always saying to me? You _have standards_.” He affected a high-pitched singsong tone, and the angel rolled his eyes in response. “It’s an option for you right now, but if you had to eat? Multiple meals a day… how many is it, again? Five? Three? Doesn’t matter. If it was more than a hobby, if it was just… eat or die, like it is for them? You’d learn. You’re clever, and it’s not like you to tolerate bad food.”

Aziraphale set his cup back down on the table, his hand covering the mouth of it as he considered Crowley’s words. Eventually, he reached for the plate and took a piece of crispbread. Crowley found himself fixed under the angel’s gaze, his eyes roving over his corporation.

Before he spoke, Aziraphale took another deep drink of _punsch_. When he lowered his cup again, he held it in his lap instead of putting it back on the table, like he was absorbing the warmth of the drink through his palms. “You’d be an artist.”

Crowley blinked. “An artist?” He echoed.

“Yes.” Aziraphale nodded. “I don’t know precisely what it is that you’d do—I could see you as a painter, maybe. Or an architect… You’d have some kind of creative outlet, though.”

“I don’t…” He trailed off, trying to find words that weren’t there. The ones that he ended up finding weren’t right, not even close, but they’d have to do. “Never saw myself much for the whole _starving artist_ thing, really.”

“You wouldn’t have to do it for work. It could be something fun. I know how much you like to have fun, Crowley,” Aziraphale laughed, “and besides, you have the hands for it.”

He opened his mouth to tell the angel he was wrong— _once, maybe, but never again, his hands didn’t work like that anymore_ —but he hesitated. Without Heaven, without Hell… what would be stopping him? He sat for a moment, hand lingering at the edge of the platter, then picked up one of the orange sections.

There was a small smile on Aziraphale’s lips as he watched Crowley eat. “Do you remember the first time we ate oranges, Crowley?”

Crowley swallowed, the taste lingering on his tongue. He wasn’t the only being with a long memory, and tonight it seemed they were remembering the same times and places… if not for the same reasons. Between this and the last question, he felt like the angel was seeing through all the things he used to hide himself—no mask, no glasses, no clothes, no denials, straight through his corporation and into that inky, coiling thing at the very center of him. The strangest part of it was that he was certain Aziraphale had done it completely by accident, and Crowley doubted that, no matter how seen and known he had felt in that moment, the angel had even noticed.

He rubbed his thumb against his fingers, feeling the slight stickiness where he’d touched the fruit. “Yeah.”

Aziraphale’s smile widened into a grin. “You took a bite out of the side of it. Whole, right through the peel. Like it was an apple.”

Being teased like that, gently and with joy, for something that happened literally thousands of years in the past brought Crowley back to the here and now. It pulled him out of his vulnerability, wrapped him in the comfortable familiarity of history and routine like a blanket, and he found himself chuckling in spite of himself.

“In fairness,” he drawled, “I hadn’t seen that many examples of how to do it at that point.”

* * *

  
Their ostensibly alcohol-free drinking game wore on for the better part of an hour, during which time Crowley worked up that pleasant buzz he’d been hoping for. If Aziraphale’s relaxed posture, easy smiles, and pink cheeks were anything to go by, he’d achieved a similar state as well, despite his insistence they stay sober. He was openly swaying to the music now, and Crowley kept his own hands wrapped around his cup to keep them from reaching out for the angel’s.

Aside from that one sudden moment that made him feel like Aziraphale was staring into his nonexistent soul, Crowley was having an excellent time with the game itself, too. Most of their questions were light and fun, and many of them provided opportunities for them to tease one another and bicker. He had the angel laughing now with one of his guesses, an extended description of the impractical and ridiculous house human Aziraphale certainly must live in.

“No, no. Nothing so lavish as that.” Aziraphale finally managed, once his laughter had subsided, and waved his hand at Crowley to get him to eat something. The demon picked up a plum—having already exhausted his options for single-bite snacks—and as he started to eat it, Aziraphale settled back into his seat and closed his eyes, humming with the music. Crowley watched him, trying to commit as much of this moment to memory as he could.

His eyes still closed, Aziraphale gave a contented sigh and said, “I know precisely what I want.”

That caught Crowley’s attention. Not what he _would_ want. Not something pretend, then, not something made up for the game for the sake of a human Aziraphale who would never exist. What he, the angel Aziraphale, _wants_.

“Oh? And what’s that?”

“Well, I...” He turned his head to look over at Crowley, his lips twisted in a fond little smile. “You know I quite like the setup you've found for yourself this time, dear boy.”

Crowley certainly _did not_ know, as it happened. “What d'you mean?”

“Just... well. I could see myself quite happy in a little flat over a bookshop like that. It would be quiet, for one. And I'd never have to go very far if I wanted to browse for something new to read.”

A desperate little “ _stay with me, then_ ” died before it left his lips, thankfully, as did an even more pitiful “ _I chose it for you_.” For once in his damned, eternal life, Crowley managed to say something safe and comprehensible.

“You should get yourself something like that, the next place they send you to.”

“That's the trouble though, isn't it?” Aziraphale was picking at the arm of the chair, running his fingernails along the ridges of the embroidery. “Being sent all over the place. I'd like... well, no. It's silly. Too human, even for a game.”

Now it was Crowley’s turn to feel like he was seeing something the angel had kept hidden, hidden in plain sight among all the human ephemera he had incorporated into his immortal life as the years wore on. His eyes were wide behind the lace panels of his mask, but he thought he did a pretty good job keeping rest of his expression neutral. He wanted to spare Aziraphale the sight of the affection and sorrow that washed through him once he made the connection. _Never make him feel like a bad angel for wanting something._

He took another bite of his plum, felt his teeth scrape against the pit. “You'd like a home.”

Aziraphale sighed, sloshing his _punsch_ around in his cup. “Well... yes, I suppose. Somewhere I can return to when I'm not working, some place I can... oh, but it's silly, isn't it? I'm an angel. I shouldn't be wanting to put down roots.”

Crowley had been expecting Aziraphale to correct him, to tell him _don’t be silly, Crowley_ , to say _an angel’s home is in Heaven_. But… it wasn’t, was it? This angel’s home, at least, was on Earth—had been for quite some time, if he had to guess. This tacit admission was the closest Crowley had ever heard him come to acknowledging that, and the words he _hadn’t_ said had done most of the talking. He wondered if Aziraphale had made a conscious choice to not mention Heaven, or if Upstairs hadn’t been _home_ for such a long time that he hadn’t even considered it. Crowley took a moment to be grateful for Aziraphale’s insistence they play their game with food instead of liquor. It was a dangerous thing they were doing, trading truths masked in fiction, secrets only given breath for one night under the pretext of inventing lives they’d never lead. It didn’t bear thinking about, what he could have confessed had he let himself get drunk.

He finished off the rest of his plum, set the stone on the edge of the platter. “It's okay to want your own space, Aziraphale.”

“I don’t know, Crowley…”

“You know what? Dream bigger. Not just a flat above a bookshop. Have the bookshop, too. Give yourself a whole library if you want it.” The angel didn’t answer, just hummed into his cup. “Think about it. Big fireplace, comfortable chairs everywhere.”

Aziraphale looked out over the railing, nodding slowly. “Lots of windows. Natural light.”

“Writing desk, right by one of those windows.”

“A sitting room.”

“Wine cellar.”

“It sounds like such a cozy place.”

“You could do it,” Crowley said, all pretext of human lives forgotten, “Make it as— _ugh_ —as _cozy_ as you like.”

“I could…” Aziraphale mused.

Crowley’s next words left his mouth before the magnitude of their stupidity could register in his brain. “I bet you’d buy the biggest feather mattress you could find.”

“You— _what_?”

“SLEEP!” Crowley yelped, far too quickly for it to even come close to sounding casual, “It’s—humans sleep. It’s a thing. Beds.”

The angel’s cheeks were pink. That much was _not_ just his imagination, though he didn’t flatter himself by thinking it was caused by anything other than shock and embarrassment. Maybe a little horror. “I… well, you’re the expert, dear boy. Not me.” Aziraphale reached across to the plate, snatching up a chocolate like he was afraid someone would stop him. All Crowley could do was stare at him. “If you do it so much, it must be pleasant.”

Crowley reached for his _punsch_ and found his cup empty. “I’m going to need to—” He began but found that the words weren’t forthcoming. He looked down at the foyer in a panic, hoping to… what? See some clue of what the Heaven to say in response to _that_ just… out in the middle of the dance floor with a big blinking arrow pointed at it?

“Refill.” Aziraphale said and stood up, his cup clutched to his chest.

“Yeah.” Crowley got to his feet too, grateful for the out he’d been given. “Parched.”

* * *

  
Standing in line for _punsch_ , Crowley watched Aziraphale with growing suspicion. He was swaying where he stood, watching the dancers, his feet no longer content to simply tap along to the music. No, he was actually standing there, in a crowd full of humans, moving his feet to mimic the steps of the dance. As distracting as his calves were in those stockings when Aziraphale pointed his toes like that, though, there were certain things Crowley couldn’t help but notice. Certain… inconsistencies.

_Well, angel,_ he thought, _pretending an awful lot tonight, aren’t we?_

There was a pink flush to the angel’s cheeks, visible under the edges of his mask. His posture was loose and easy, his laughter freely given, and his smile bright and giddy. Crowley normally only saw him like this after hours of hard drinking, but he knew that couldn’t be the case tonight. No matter how he was acting, those pale blue eyes were clear and alert. The _punsch_ was stronger than something like wine, but there was no way he was that far gone already. Aziraphale had been nursing the same cup all night, on a stomach full of the king’s best nibbles, and Crowley had sensed no angelic miracle that suggested that he’d summoned more alcohol.

The most damning piece of evidence was, of course, that the cup was still almost completely full. It hadn’t been that Aziraphale found the drink unpleasant—on the contrary, he had lavished praise on it after his first taste, and if there was one thing the angel could be counted upon to always tell the truth about, it was his opinions on food and alcohol. No, Aziraphale clearly wanted to _look_ drunk without actually _being_ drunk.

Crowley was familiar with the tactic. It was one of the simpler tricks in his temptation toolkit, one he brought out sometimes when he had to work parties and needed to focus. He found that it was often easier to nudge a drunk person towards bad decisions when the suggestion came from someone they assumed to be just as sloshed as they were. It was also damn useful when gambling, as Aziraphale knew all too well. He refused to call it _cheating_ at cards, instead insisting it was Crowley’s fault for underestimating him and assuming he’d be easy to beat when “drunk”.

There was something going on here, something Aziraphale wanted to do that required him to hide behind another flimsy excuse to let himself do it, and Crowley absolutely wanted to be a part of whatever it was. He put a hand to his temple and winced as he felt the small amount of alcohol he’d consumed during the evening bleed from his system and back into the serving bowl from whence it came.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Aziraphale watching him. He’d noticed. Good. Crowley knew, and now Aziraphale knew he knew, and they didn’t have to talk about it. They were on the same page again, or at least as much as they ever could be. Aziraphale could keep his pretense up without Crowley poking holes in it, and maybe he’d let himself have some fun for once. Tidy bit of work for… whatever this was about. It didn’t matter. Whatever game the angel was playing, Crowley could play it, too.

“Headache?” The angel asked, his voice light and even.

“Nah, not yet. Who knows about in the morning, though. Might come away with a right bastard of a hangover.” He winked and felt his eyelashes brush up against the lace covering the eyeholes of his mask. _Even sober you’re still an idiot_ , he thought to himself, and then raised his empty cup to the angel to get his point across. Aziraphale copied the gesture, smiling against the rim of his own cup as he brought it to his lips.

“I’m cutting myself off," Aziraphale said. Crowley reached out a hand to take his cup and placed both of theirs on the refreshments table.

The musicians reached the end of the current song with a flourish, and the angel’s attention was once again drawn away to the center of the foyer. In the lull between dances, the neat parallel lines of dancers broke apart. People changed places to find different partners, and new dancers approached to fill the places of those who left the dance floor in search of food or drink… or to meet up with their partners somewhere more secluded. Crowley knew that, if they were to walk out there now, they would find two places open and waiting for them when the lines reformed.

“I have another guess,” he said, and Aziraphale turned back to him to listen.

“About human me?”

“Yeah.” Crowley paused, then said what he’d been fighting not to since the first time he saw Aziraphale here tonight—longer than that, if he was being honest. Since he saw the way he moved with a sword in his hand, since he noticed the control the angel had over his corporation, how delicate he could be while still being strong. Since he first saw humans dancing around a fire and thought, _might be nice to do that with someone else_. “I think he’s the kind of person who’d have fun dancing.”

He braced himself for a rejection, or at worst, an argument and an early end to the night. Instead, it looked like Aziraphale was considering it.

When they’d been playing their game up in the box, they’d had a way to answer questions without having to speak. If the other person is right, you eat. If they’re wrong, they do. It felt safer, like there was a little more distance that could be put there—after all, it was only implication and interpretation. Once something was said out loud, it became real, an answer that couldn’t easily be taken back. A wedge of orange in your mouth isn’t the same thing as saying _yes_ , even though you might hope it tells the same story.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said at last, his eyes fierce, “Yes, I think he is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No historical notes this time, but I wanted to say:
> 
> Horse anatomy is deeply cursed.
> 
> Shout-out to Ignica for getting the idea of lawyer Crowley in my brain.
> 
> Evil really does contain the seeds of its own destruction, because I have been craving Turkish coffee since about December 5th. I'm happy to say that I finally had a cup. I am a happy noodle. On a related note, I bought five pounds of oranges today.
> 
> Pretending to be drunker than she was while cleaning house at Blackjack and/or Texas Hold 'Em was my mom's way to pass the time when she got roped into going to work parties with drunk assholes in the 80s. I respect the hustle.
> 
> This fic summoned snow to my location, because it actually snowed in my part of Texas over the weekend. Wild. It was 68F/20C the day before, we had to shelter in place because there was a risk of tornadoes, and then the temperature plunged overnight and we got a couple inches of snow in the morning. _Yee_ , and I cannot stress this enough, _Haw._
> 
> * * *
> 
>   
> **Ok, so about the smut:** The scene's already written, and unless I just absolutely hate the way the pacing works with the rest of the fic after I can read the whole chapter beginning to end, this fic will be bumped up to an E rating. I'll warn ahead of time in the note at the beginning of that specific chapter. There will also be quite a few tags added.
> 
> I _finally_ made a [side blog on Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/noodlefrog-omens) for GO. It has like six posts on it right now, lol, but please feel free to talk to me over there, too.


	4. Missteps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another arm slipped around his own, far more gently than before. Aziraphale was standing beside him, an uncertain smile on his lips. Crowley’s heart was in his throat as he felt the brush of warm fingertips against the bare skin of his wrist, featherlight and hesitant.
> 
> “Yes?” The angel asked, an expectant look in his eye. Crowley gave an almost frantic nod in response and then he was being pulled along to the left— _part of the dance, you idiot,_ he reminded himself as he led them back to the right again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. If you noticed, this fic is now rated E. The sexual content is going to be in the next chapter, but I wanted to go ahead and bump the rating up so no one finding this for the first time will be caught unaware.

Crowley thought he heard something behind him, hushed and rhythmic, as the pair of them made their way through the crowd towards the dance floor. He chanced a glance over his shoulder and saw Aziraphale’s mouth moving, his eyes on the ground. Practicing, Crowley realized, keeping time by counting under his breath. The angel was walking with precise, measured steps and pausing on every four to extend a leg and point his toe. He wasn’t great at it yet, of course. Aziraphale’s movements were stiff and sharp, like a soldier working through the paces of a drill, but his face— _Satan, his face_ —was giddy and filled with such open joy that Crowley seriously wondered if he was about to start glowing. Crowley cringed internally as he was yet again reminded what a shit demon he was, to find an angel’s awkward dancing… _ugh_ … adorable.

Two new parallel lines were forming on the dance floor, the dancers divided up by gender. The nearer of lines, the one populated by the man-shaped humans, had two empty places side-by-side that were ignored by any other would-be dancers. Aziraphale hesitated at the edge of the crowd, looking between Crowley and the open spaces with confusion.

Crowley realized with a pang that they… hadn’t actually talked this part of the idea through. To be fair, they hadn’t talked about _any of it_ , not really, but what else was new there? Aziraphale had admitted, with as much clarity as he ever admitted to anything, that he’d wanted to dance. Tonight, specifically. That much had been pretty much a given, what with the way he’d been watching the dance floor all night, sighing and swaying to the music… but he hadn’t actually indicated any interest in dancing _with Crowley_.

True, Aziraphale had followed him out to the periphery of the dance floor, but that wasn’t grounds to assume that he’d wanted to be seen dancing publicly with him like this, shoulder to shoulder like… well, like they knew one another. He had probably assumed they were going to slip into the line separately like strangers, make it seem like an accident that they were here at the same time in case anyone decided to check up on them, like they usually did when they met out in the open … Or maybe Aziraphale had thought it better that they should avoid being out on the floor at the same time at all, and he was now wondering why Crowley had opened up a second space.

Sure enough, when Crowley looked at Aziraphale again, he was obsessively straightening and smoothing parts of his costume. He’d made him nervous. _Shit._

“I. You know, I think I’ll sit this one out,” Crowley said with as much indifference as he could summon.

Alarm flashed across Aziraphale’s expression as he squeaked out a rushed little, “Don’t!” He seemed surprised by his own outburst and cleared his throat before continuing in a more normal voice. “I was… I was rather hoping you…” His confidence seemed to deflate under Crowley’s stare, and he looked back towards their box like he was planning his escape route. “Oh, stuff it. I’m sitting it out, too.”

_Well, fuck._ “We can take turns, if you’d rather.”

“No, no… it’s not that, it’s just…” Aziraphale sighed. “I’ve never done this before. I’d hoped you would... Well. It’s just that you know what you’re doing.”

Crowley took a deep breath. _Nerves about dancing_ , he thought, trying to calm himself down, _not necessarily nerves about dancing with me_. It was better than he should have hoped for, yet he still found himself looking for a way to give Aziraphale an out.

“I’d make for a pretty useless dance instructor.”

“I’ve been told I’m a quick study,” Aziraphale said, eyeing the gaps in the line ahead of them with the same open want he typically reserved for ogling baked goods through a patisserie window.

“I'll... be on this end, then, I guess,” Crowley said, taking the place closer to the grand staircase and the king's box, “You can watch me if you want.”

“...Right. Yes.” Aziraphale slipped in beside him, beaming, and Crowley stopped breathing. “This will work.”

The part of Crowley’s corporation resembling a digestive tract suddenly felt light and squirmy. He was demon enough to admit that part of it was due to nerves. He and the angel were both nearly six thousand years old (not counting the span of their lives that had come Before the invention of time) and they had been everywhere on the globe at least once. For there to be any _firsts_ left for them at all was a rare thing indeed, and yet here was Aziraphale, grinning like the sun, all excited for his first proper dance. Crowley was no skilled dancer, he’d warned the angel of as much several times already, but he knew he was as much of a teacher as Aziraphale was likely to get. He really did not want to cock this one up, in case Aziraphale decided he never wanted to try this again.

Another part of it was the absolutely humiliating glee he felt at being permitted to stand here side by side with the angel, so close their shoulders were almost touching, and watch as Aziraphale savored another human pleasure for the first time. Crowley knew he’d be good at it, once he got in enough practice. All you had to do was watch him move, see the precision in every step and gesture, and you’d know he’d be a natural at dancing. If he could get over himself, get over the rules he forced himself to follow, he’d take to it like a duck takes to the water. All he needed was a little _push_.

As the musicians began to settle in to play, Aziraphale greeted his dance partner in the opposite line, and Crowley’s, too, for good measure. No names were exchanged—it was kind of a _thing_ at this kind of a party—though Crowley doubted that he would have cared enough to remember the human’s names even if they had said them.

They were both woman-shaped and probably young-ish, though it was hard to tell with the costumes. Crowley’s partner was dressed up as a shepherdess in a gown that probably cost more than a whole flock of sheep. He couldn’t really see her face at all, given how much taller he was than her and the size of the brim on her bonnet. He assumed that this next bit would feel more like dancing with an ambulatory hat than with a person, and he couldn’t say that bothered him very much. Aziraphale had been partnered with someone dressed up as a bat with a winged shawl fastened to the underside of her sleeves. He heard the angel compliment the pointy ears affixed to either end of her mask.

There was a moment’s quiet before the music started up again and all the humans on the dance floor shuffled into position.

“Alright,” Crowley said under his breath, “They're going to start this one with a... like a walk-y thing. Promenade.”

“Oh. Right. What do I do?”

“Just... follow behind me. Try not to walk too fast or too slow once you get to the end and split off.” He nodded in the direction of Bat-Human. “Try to get back to your spot at the same time she does.”

“Right. And... what then?”

The first notes began to resonate through the foyer. Crowley had to turn his back to Aziraphale as both lines turned toward the king’s box to bow. He knew he'd chosen the spot closer to the front intentionally so the angel could watch him as an example, but the interruption still irritated him.

The lines turned back inwards to face each other, and Crowley hissed out a quick response as he and Aziraphale bowed to their dance partners. “It won't really start off until everyone's back. You'll have a bit to catch up.”

They turned to face the front again, and Crowley felt Hat-Human take the arm he had offered her. Pair-by-pair, arm-in-arm, the dancers advanced on the far end of the dance floor, all queueing for their moment to present themselves and their costumes to whoever was paying attention in the royal box above.

“Feels a bit like the Ark,” he heard Aziraphale mutter behind him, and Crowley tried hard not to crack a smile. By the time he and Hat-Human had reached the front of the lines, Crowley was impatient for this part to be finished. He had more important things to do. They waited for what felt like an appropriate length of time based on how long the pair just before them had waited and drifted apart.

The last part of the promenade was more than just the simple shuffle-forward-motion of the earlier part. There was an added bit, a kind of a sideways shimmy every few steps, and Crowley couldn't be bothered to get the footwork right. He just looked at the bloke in front of him and tried to face the same way he did at around the same time. With his back still turned to Aziraphale he had no way of knowing how the angel was getting on with it—probably not as well as he could under other circumstances, seeing as he was having to follow behind somebody who had clearly forgotten a few key parts of this dance in the century since he last tried it. Still, as Crowley didn't hear any screams and hadn't been knocked over into the other dancers like a domino, he assumed Aziraphale was managing.

“ _Crowley, what do I do now?_ ” The angel whispered, a note of urgency in his voice as he slipped back into his place behind Crowley in line.

“Erm… Right.” Crowley closed his eyes, drumming his fingertips against his thigh in time with the music. He had learned the woman’s part of this dance originally all those decades ago, but he supposed it would be easy enough to translate the steps, especially when he wasn’t lugging around all those skirts. “It’s… you start like this, and then it’s three steps, and you repeat.”

Crowley turned out his feet, touching his heels together and bobbing in place for a moment as he bent his knees. He was acutely aware that his corporation was mostly leg—one of God’s little jokes, as She’d declined to also give him more than a theoretical relationship with the concept of bipedal walking—and felt he must look like some gangly scarecrow come to life to terrorize the ballroom. Beside him, Aziraphale was copying the motion, counting under his breath to try to refine the timing.

The rest of the line was filling out behind them. They had only moments to spare.

“So, it’s… that, then three steps. What else?”

“Right.” Crowley looked across to their partners, who were looking between themselves with somewhat dubious expressions as they watched the rushed tutorial taking place in front of them. “You’re going to circle her, and she’s going to circle you. It’s like… it’s a big spiral inwards, doing those steps.” He waved his hand in a vague approximation of an oval.

“And we meet in the middle?”

“Yes. And you’ll hold her hand.”

The last pair of dancers arrived at the end of the line. Aziraphale cast a panicked look between Crowley and Bat-Human, who smiled encouragingly at him.

Crowley sighed, trying to make sure it didn’t sound as fond as he felt. “Just watch me.” He held his arms out, put his feet in the correct starting position, and began his long clockwise arc away from the angel.

The dance was a fairly slow and repetitive one, which he hoped would ease Aziraphale into the whole dancing business. It was a bit… _intimate_ , though, and Crowley didn’t quite know how the angel would feel about that. There was barely any physical contact involved—just your hand in your partner’s for the last, shortest orbit of the dance, reaching for them at arm’s length before you’re pulled apart again—but it was very obviously a ritualized human courtship thing. _A dance of flirtation_ , as it had been described when he’d done his initial research last century. There was some mad part of him he couldn’t quite rein in that wished it was his hand getting held rather than some human’s. He knew he was being greedy, he knew he’d ruin this if he tried to grab for more than what he’d already been given, but he couldn’t stop how much he wanted.

Their first rotation went smoothly, save for a moment when Crowley almost accidentally shoulder-checked Bat-Human at the point where the paths of their orbits crossed over one another’s. Aziraphale apologized to her once they reached the center of their spiral. He reached out for her hand once he saw that Crowley had offered his to Hat-Human. They circled their partners and retreated to start the dance all over again.

It was on their second rotation that the dance (from Crowley’s point of view, at least) became far more entertaining. There was probably some misstep that happened, judging by the confused look on Hat-Human’s face, but Crowley found he didn’t really care. The second time he made his wide arc around the dance floor, he noticed that his orbit didn’t overlap with the human’s anymore—his orbit overlapped with _Aziraphale’s_.

“Enjoying yourself?” He asked as he brushed past the angel. Aziraphale looked up from where he’d been watching his own feet, pausing in his whispered counting, and stalled where he stood as he watched Crowley glide away again. The angel took his next series of steps at nearly double speed as he tried to catch up with his partner.

The next time they passed close to one another, Aziraphale anticipated the moment and leaned in towards him to say, “You know, I rather think I am.”

“You’re getting the hang of it!” Crowley called over his shoulder.

They danced that way for several turns, speaking in fragments whenever they were close enough to do so, and Crowley was elated. He also found the whole scenario almost hysterically funny, especially the parts where he put on a very serious face to hold hands with his dance partner. Here he was, _a demon of Hell_ , hand clasped in the hand of a human wearing a stupid hat, trying his very hardest not to grin like a maniac. For her part, Hat-Human didn’t seem very amused by it.

“I think this was one of your better ideas, dear boy,” Aziraphale said on a subsequent pass, and Crowley was temporarily possessed by the wild urge to just tilt his head back and yell. He suppressed that as best he could but couldn’t suppress the grin that broke out across his face.

“Who says it was my idea?”

He circled back around, taking the hand of... Bat-Human? He stared at her and she continued to remain resolutely herself, instead of the human who had been there before. This wasn't one of those dances where you changed partners, was it? No, no he was reasonably certain it wasn't. What’s worse, he had no idea how this thing had even happened. Bat-Human looked as surprised as Crowley felt, and they both looked over at Hat-Human and Aziraphale to watch the two of them grapple with the realization of the partner swap.

“I thought you said you knew how to do this one,” Aziraphale grumbled as he let go of her hand.

“I do!”

The angel opened and closed his mouth, looking between Crowley and the two humans. “…You poached my dance partner!”

“No,” Crowley said, circling into the angel’s space, “she poached me.”

Aziraphale gave a dramatic sigh. “I also don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re the only one going counterclockwise.”

Crowley glanced around at the other dancers as he turned back around to face his new partner. “…it seems I am, yes.”

“You _have_ done this one before, right?” Aziraphale extended a hand to Hat-Human, who turned her head away to laugh.

“Yeah, loads of times.”

“When was the last time?”

“Er…” Crowley didn’t answer until he was close enough to whisper. “Who’s the King of France right now, an—Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale blinked. “Louis XVI. Why?”

“The Sun King… Which one was he, how many Louis-es back was that?”

“He was the… the fourteenth, I think.”

Aziraphale’s eyes were on Crowley for another full cycle of the dance, awaiting his answer. As they passed by one another again, Crowley rolled his eyes, not that anyone could see it behind the mask.

“It was his court. So, it’s been a bit.”

“ _A bit?_ ” Aziraphale gasped. “Good Lord, Crowley, that’s at least eighty years ago.”

“Something like that.”

Soon after, the song came to an end. Once the next bit of bowing and clapping was done, Hat-Human made her goodbyes and disappeared into the crowd. She was quickly replaced by an older woman with what looked to be ostrich feathers tucked into her hair.

“So,” Crowley said as the lines began to reform, “You danced.”

“I did.” Aziraphale’s voice was even, but there was something behind it, something with weight. As that bright initial joy of dancing with the angel—well, dancing adjacent to him—for the first time started to fade, feelings of anxiety and awkwardness began to catch up with Crowley.

“Bit of a disaster, honestly.” To that, the angel hummed a bit in response, noncommittal. Crowley wanted to apologize almost as much as he wanted to push the blame off on Aziraphale for trying to learn from him even after being told how bad Crowley was at dancing. Instead, he continued with a pathetic gasp of optimism. “Kind of a fun disaster, though, right?”

Aziraphale laughed. “I do want to try it a second time, see if we can’t improve through practice.”

Crowley shook his head almost imperceptibly, stunned at his luck. He’d expected to only get the one shot, and then to have to wait a century or two until the opportunity arose again— _if_ he hadn’t just made Aziraphale swear off the whole thing altogether. He’d already written off their experiment as a failure and had been looking forward to slinking back to their box, hopefully with the option of asking the angel more silly questions about his fake human life. Faced with Aziraphale’s unexpected enthusiasm, he found that he was more than willing to make a fool of himself as many times as the angel wanted him to.

They settled back into line as the next song began, and as they repeated the process of bowing first to the king and then to one another—thankfully, without the added fuss of another promenade this time—Crowley realized that he recognized this new dance, too. He'd learned it much more recently, only a decade or so back, and in much less lavish surroundings than the court of any king. No, he'd been shown it following a Satanic ritual he'd had to attend, and once the bit with the goat was over and done with, he’d found that the nuns actually knew how to put together a decent afterparty.

“This one’s a bit faster,” Crowley said, mid-bow, “but it’s a lot less formal.” _And a lot more hands-on_ , he thought.

“It’s one of the ones where you dance with multiple people,” Bat-Human added, grinning wickedly, “So your friend here should have a good time with it.”

Before Aziraphale could counter her description of them as _friends_ , the human man beside him had linked elbows with him and was pulling him along behind him as the line hopped four steps to the left. Not giving himself any time for nerves or doubt, Crowley slipped his own arm around the angel’s and followed along, getting tugged back with him four paces to the right once the line changed directions again.

“ _Good Heavens_ ,” Aziraphale exclaimed, wide-eyed, as half the humans turned to clap their hands with the people behind them in line, “what do I do?”

“You would have just clapped with me, but we missed it. That’s fine, we’ll get it next time.” Crowley waved a hand at Bat-Human. “Go dance with her a bit, then you’ll change places.”

The step to this one was little more than a skip, but the real complication was in making sure you don’t collide with anyone while you’re being spun around by the elbow or crisscrossing between other dancers to get to your new partner. Fast and simple, as well as fairly chaotic, the dance was definitely more than enough to get Crowley’s heart hammering with anticipation.

Crowley linked arms with Ostrich Feathers, wheeling around in place and taking her spot in line. Aziraphale was practically flung into position beside him off the arm of Bat-Human, who stepped back up to clap first their right hands, then their left.

“Alright, now switch.” Crowley instructed as he finished clapping with Ostrich Feathers.

“Switch with you, or with—?” Aziraphale’s question was answered for him when Bat-Human hooked an arm around Crowley’s and hauled him away by the elbow, and the angel was left standing next to Ostrich Feathers. Crowley stumbled as he was spun around, yanked nearly off his feet. Bat-Human was laughing as she pulled them to a stop, clapping their hands together four times in quick succession. He’d lived with the maenads once, and he assumed this human would have fit right in at those revels.

Another arm slipped around his own, far more gently than before. Aziraphale was standing beside him, an uncertain smile on his lips. Crowley’s heart was in his throat as he felt the brush of warm fingertips against the bare skin of his wrist, featherlight and hesitant.

“Yes?” The angel asked, an expectant look in his eye. Crowley gave an almost frantic nod in response and then he was being pulled along to the left— _part of the dance, you idiot_ , he reminded himself as he led them back to the right again.

He lamented the loss of contact as soon as they turned to face one another, but then Aziraphale’s hands were reaching for his, palm to palm, his skin singing with each brief touch— _right hand, left hand, right, left_ … and then it was over, and he was arm-in-arm with a human again, spinning too fast to always keep the angel in view.

The speed of the dance was the best thing about it, because Crowley was able to move fast enough to outrun all the doubts and fears that followed him—fears of getting caught, of pushing the angel away, of finally being told he was unwelcome as well as unwanted—and could pretend for a few shining minutes that everything was simple. The speed was also the worst thing about it, because every time he was allowed to touch the angel he had to stop again before he’d had a chance to savor it. It was worse than if he hadn’t been allowed to touch him at all, because the fleeting thrill of it made him crave it more and more.

Crowley was dimly aware, distracted as he was by the music and the rush and the fun of it all, that something sharp and hungry was waking up inside him, something that threatened to make him forget himself, forget the _risk_ , forget the impossibility of it all. Images flashed through his mind, shifting too quickly for him to dwell on, and that was a small mercy, at least. He felt the angel’s arm crooked around his and he wondered what it would feel like to have both of those soft, strong arms holding him. His eyes lingered on Aziraphale’s lips as they touched palm-to-palm, and he wondered what those lips would feel like against the pad of his thumb, what they’d taste like. Once, by accident, Aziraphale grabbed Crowley’s hand instead of his elbow, and for the duration of an eight-count, Crowley wondered if he’d ever felt this happy before. He must not have, because if he’d been this happy in Heaven, he’d never have questioned a thing.

All too soon, it was over, and Crowley was left standing all too still in a body that was practically humming with the urge to move. Beside him, Aziraphale was looking flushed and radiant… and perhaps a little overwhelmed. Wanting to give him the space to decide what to do next on his own, Crowley slipped away from the dance floor with the excuse of getting them something to drink. The detour came with the added benefit of giving Crowley a chance to calm himself down before he did something that would break this fragile, wonderful moment he’d found himself living in for the night. He opened and closed his fists as he walked, flexing his fingers, unsure if he was trying to chase away the faint tingle in his palms or trying to prolong the feeling.

He reached the refreshments table just as the servants were making another fresh batch of _punsch_. Crowley stood to the side, glancing back to look for white-blond curls among the dancers. Aziraphale had moved on, though, but he hadn’t strayed far. He was just past the edge of the dance floor, standing at the foot of the grand staircase in animated conversation with Bat-Human. Crowley couldn’t hear what they were saying from this distance, but from the way the angel was giving a slow turn and holding up the edge of his multi-colored cape, he assumed he was in the midst of explaining his costume. _Typical_. He turned his attention back to the slowly dissolving sugarloaf. He told himself that it was better he was over here and not having to listen to the whole story all over again, though his own imagination supplied it for him in a trilling imitation of the angel’s voice regardless. _Oh yes, dear girl, I am dressed as the Northern Lights! Why, I was taken with the phenomenon from the first time I saw it nearly five thousand years ago—not literally, of course, you understand. Just a joke…_

Out of habit, he glanced back that way again and saw Aziraphale leaning on the banister behind him, pretending to be as drunk as Bat-Human clearly was. She was waving a lazy hand in the direction of the king’s box above them, laughing behind her other hand hard enough Crowley could see her shoulders moving. The angel was laughing, too. Smiling. Beaming at her like she’d hung the stars. Crowley had no idea what she’d said to make him smile like that, but even from this far away he could tell that the joy was genuine. He felt something cold and ugly uncoil itself in his belly where that sharp hunger had been only moments before.

It wasn’t jealousy, no. Jealousy would have been something that made sense in a warped sort of way, would have been something he could have at least justified to himself as a properly demonic response… not that he could have ever justified it to anyone else, mind. It wasn’t the kind of thing that he could put down in his paperwork. He could just see it now. _Yeah, Hastur, I’m arse over teakettle for an angel, but don’t worry about it, I’m a jealous lover._ There’s no way that conversation could happen that wouldn’t result in said arse getting lit on fire. Real pyromaniac, Hastur. Ah, well. Everyone needs a hobby, he supposed, and at least that one kept the Duke out of out of Crowley’s hair most of the time.

So, no. It wasn’t jealousy. He didn’t feel any ill will towards Aziraphale. The angel could smile like that at anyone he wanted to, Crowley wasn’t owed his time or his smiles. He couldn’t even bring himself to be irritated at the Bat-Human as she tittered and smiled back at Aziraphale. She was just a mortal wringing a little drunken joy out of a frigid winter night, he couldn’t fault her for that. Besides, he couldn’t imagine a scenario where she would end up with anything approximating a romantic liaison with the angel. She was a mayfly in the lamplight. They’d both forget she ever existed, probably even sooner than her short human lifespan ran out, and in a few generations, no one would remember who she’d been.

Unless, of course… what would human Aziraphale do in this context? Was this just another part of the game he was playing? Crowley wondered just how far exactly the angel was willing to take it. Did he see a ball like this as a place to have a discreet affair? Was that his aim here, why he’d pretended to be drunk, so he could talk himself into some kind of… human tryst?

It would be a small thing for a demon like Crowley to send a small temptation her way, to nudge her into the arms of another human. He might even be able to do it without Aziraphale noticing. Crowley dismissed the idea as soon as it occurred to him. If Aziraphale wanted to have some kind of fling with a mortal, that was his business, and Crowley wouldn’t ever try to stop him. Aziraphale deserved to feel loved, to enjoy himself, to be given soft touches and sweet words. A human would be a much safer option for that than a demon… assuming a demon ever even could be an option.

_Jealousy_ implied that Crowley coveted what that human woman might potentially have. He did covet, of course he did. He coveted like it was his bloody job. But what he felt in that long, lonely moment looking across the foyer wasn’t the desire to take what wasn’t his—it was self-pity, pathetic and aching, at the reminder that what he wanted would never, _could never_ be his.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable part of it all, though, was the acknowledgement of just how much contrivance it had taken to get to this point at all. Disguises, pretending they were human, pretending they were drunker than they were… There would always need to be layers of excuses and pretext and plausible deniability between them, there would always be danger and secrets and fear. Crowley had mostly accepted that centuries ago. For the first time since Aziraphale had said it up in their box, he truly understood what the angel was saying about wishing he could be a human. It couldn’t ever be simple between them. They could never be two friends dancing just because they wanted to. It was doubtful they could ever even just be _two friends_ , not without caveats. They could never, _ever_ be more than that.

The pretext for their being at the ball at all was to wile and tempt. They wore their costumes to blend in, and if questioned, he supposed they could say they were in close proximity like this because they hadn’t recognized each other under their masks, that they’d each thought the other was a human stranger. Their supervisors were stupid enough they’d probably believe it.

The other things, though, those weren’t lies for fooling their head offices. He couldn’t imagine Aziraphale telling Gabriel they’d decided to play human, so that part must have either been for Crowley’s benefit or for Aziraphale’s. Similarly, Crowley wasn’t fooled by the angel’s fake drinking, and Aziraphale knew it, but he hadn’t dropped the act after being discovered. That left only one explanation: Aziraphale was trying to fool himself, probably so he could do things he’d never let himself do sober. The angel’s powers of self-delusion were vast.

So, yeah. It stung a bit, seeing him smile like that at the human, knowing the only reason they were here at all was because Aziraphale was trying his damnedest to pretend he was human like her. A drunk human, specifically, because even in this strange little game they’d dreamed up the human Aziraphale wouldn’t dance with the human Crowley unless he was well on his way to being hammered.

No, he wasn’t jealous of the human, no matter what happened between her and the angel. Why bother wanting something he couldn’t ever have? They’d never be allowed— _Aziraphale_ would never allow them—to be close and friendly like this in public as an angel and a demon. It was all pretend, just for a night, and at dawn they’d go back to the same way things had been for centuries.

And what was that, exactly? _How many lies and excuses did Aziraphale tell himself in order to pretend it was tolerable being friends with a demon?_

“ _Stop staring at him._ ” Crowley flinched as an unfamiliar voice hissed in his ear. He spun on the spot, expecting Hell, but instead saw a human dressed in a half mask and domino hood.

“ _What?_ ” It wasn’t a yelp, that would have been undignified. It was a bit louder than he’d expected, though, and the human glared at him like Crowley was not only an idiot but a _dangerous_ idiot.

“You’re being fucking obvious, just… stop staring at him.”

He followed the man’s furtive glance in the direction of the staircase, and with a pang of dread he realized Aziraphale had slipped away while he’d been distracted.

_Fuck._

Aziraphale was out of sight, and of the three options for his whereabouts Crowley’s brain supplied him—gone from the ball entirely, off shagging a human, or about to see Crowley so pathetically out of control that a _mortal_ had been able to pick up on it—he couldn’t decide which possibility would be the worst.

“ _Ssshit_.”

“Yeah, _shit_ ,” the man whispered, his voice harsh, “Were you trying to scare him off?”

Crowley goggled at the human. He didn't recognize that voice, and from what Crowley could see under the hood and around the mask, he seemed to be a complete stranger.

“Look, ah… I don’t think you know who…” He shook his head to try to get the words out in the right order, glanced around for some kind of context clue that would make this interaction make sense.

Understanding seemed to dawn on the human, and the intensity of his expression softened into something like sympathy. “Oh. You’re nervous… First time?”

The noises that came out of Crowley’s mouth were incomprehensible, but the man in the hood just closed his eyes and nodded sagely, like no further clarification was needed.

“Everyone’s a little scared their first time. Just… Relax.” The human squeezed his upper arm in… comfort? Encouragement? Crowley was baffled as to why this conversation was happening at all, let alone why the mortal was touching him. His involuntary noises raised in pitch to the point where he was certain they’d surpassed the upper limits of the human’s hearing. “It’s going to be a lucky night. I can feel it.” With a conspiratorial grin, the human backed away from him and into the crowd.

Crowley was left staring after him, slack-jawed, wondering what the Heaven had just happened, when Aziraphale appeared at his side holding two cups of _punsch_. He flinched again.

“Did you know him?” The angel asked, holding out one of the cups and looking out over the crowd.

_Fuck,_ he screamed to himself, _how much of that did he hear?_

“Nothing!” Crowley’s mouth supplied, answering the wrong question too quickly. “I… nope. No idea what that was about.”

He took the cup he was offered and drank, looking around his immediate surroundings in case he needed to teleport the lunatic in the domino hood somewhere else before he started saying _things like that again_ , this time in _front_ of the angel.

He vaguely registered the fact that Bat-Human was nowhere to be seen.

Aziraphale looked at him strangely for a moment before taking a drink of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Note:**   
> If anyone was curious about my rationale for picking those two human's costumes... Bat costumes were like A Thing for a long time, though they really got popular circa the Victorian era and then kind of stuck around in the cultural consciousness due in part to some high-visibility examples like the opera _Die Fledermaus_. I picked a shepherdess for the other one because there was a resurgence in popularity of rustic/pastoral themes in these early days of the Industrial Revolution.
> 
> The first dance the boys attempt is a Minuet—I figured it was pretty appropriate, given the interest and support Gustav III was showing to the French court (before *that* whole situation went to shit with the big head cutting off machines and all) that he might also be interested in seeing some French dancing. It would have been an older dance by this point, but it was still fashionable.
> 
> The second dance is a variation of a _Contredanse_ , which was fast and less formal when compared to other dances of the day. It's another example of people going in for the whole "romanticized country life" thing. For a pretty good example of what a similar kind of dance looks like, see the Meryton Assembly dance scene in _Pride and Prejudice_ (2005).
> 
> Please drop a rope ladder, I have fallen down a research hole.


	5. Illusions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All Crowley could do was stand there, mouth open, feeling like a creature encased in amber as he watched the angel leave.
> 
> “Well?” Aziraphale asked, his stage whisper carrying across the distance between them, “Are you coming?”
> 
> Just like that, the amber was gone, and he could move again. _Had to_ move again, because the angel was leaving and asking for him to follow.
> 
> _Wherever you go, angel,_ he thought, _I'll follow you there._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the next ten minutes, it's still Michael Sheen's birthday in my timezone. Happy birthday you magnificent, feral bastard.
> 
> * * *
> 
> I had to cut the chapter in half because the smut ran away from me and I'm trying really hard to avoid 10k chapters. I had it all written, or so I thought... and then to my surprise there was another two thousand words of it.

Aziraphale resumed his animated chatter almost immediately, talking about anything and everything besides his and Crowley’s jobs. After a few minutes of this, Crowley even stopped feeling like he wanted to sink through the floorboards and disappear, lulled into the familiar pattern of their conversation to the point where he almost forgot the sting and confusion that had risen up in him after their dance. He couldn’t forget it entirely, though. He was reminded every time Aziraphale looked at him with too-clear eyes over a too-full cup, and he had to confront the reality that the angel was _up to something._

They didn’t return to the dance floor, or to their box. They stayed out among the crowd, exactly where Aziraphale had found Crowley, and just sort of… lingered. It was like they’d gotten stuck there somehow. Something had shifted between them tonight, and while it was a familiar situation for Crowley—that all-encompassing want, threatening to boil over and ruin everything—he couldn’t put a name to the way Aziraphale was acting. It was clear that the angel wanted something, too, and badly. Crowley knew they weren’t wanting the same things, but he couldn’t stop himself from thinking of the possibility.

Aziraphale kept looking at Crowley, those pink lips parted like he was about to ask for whatever it was, and then looking away, feigning interest in the dancers. It was enough to keep Crowley on edge— _just fucking ask me, give me a hint, and I’ll do it, I don’t care what it is_ —but he kept himself in check. He couldn’t push, he couldn’t tempt. It had to be Aziraphale’s idea from start to finish.

Crowley didn’t look at his watch. He didn’t want to see how fast their hours and minutes and seconds were bleeding away, but he knew it must be getting late. It couldn’t be midnight yet, probably only half past ten or maybe eleven, and they had until dawn. He didn’t know what kind of goodbye this would be, if they would be able to call on each other here in Stockholm until spring came, or if he wouldn’t see the angel for another century after tonight. Even if they stayed in the same city, he knew that this closeness they built up would be gone the moment the masks went away. That was the thing about games. They were fun while they lasted, but every one of them had a beginning and an end, and after you finished you went back to your life.

“I wish we could dance.”

Aziraphale said it all in one breath, in a rush to get the words out, and quiet like a sigh. He hadn’t been looking at Crowley when he’d said it. The angel had shifted on his feet until they stood shoulder to shoulder, and in profile Crowley saw that his eyes were looking up above them—keeping watch, he supposed, not that he would see anyone even if they were being observed. It wasn’t like they were going to find Michael or any of the others perched on the chandelier in the foyer.

Crowley nodded, keeping his voice low and his head facing straight—his eyes, though, were safe behind his mask, and he could look his fill. Right now, they were looking at Aziraphale’s hands and the way he twisted the ring around his pinky.

“We can, we could go back out there, the ball won't end for hours yet.”

“...we could, yes. It's just...” Aziraphale looked out over the dance floor with a sigh, and Crowley glanced between his face and the pairs of dancers coming together and pulling apart like the ebb and flow of the tide. “It’s silly. I made… assumptions. But it’s no matter.”

_What did I do wrong?_

His first thought had been that Aziraphale had expected a better… well, not _partner_. The humans they’d danced with were better at it than either of them. However, a seductive little whisper of an idea came to him as he thought back on the two dances they shared. It unsettled him, how close it sounded to what he wanted the answer to be, but damn him… it made a certain kind of sense.

For Crowley, the best part of the dance had been the ebb of the tide, the back step, the retreat into the sidelines. That had been his focus, the feeling of his arm linked with Aziraphale's, the sting of palm against palm, the accidental overlap of orbits. The rest of it, those turns in the center of the floor with some forgettable mortal... he hadn't put much thought into it. Just a few more moments without Aziraphale, unremarkable in the face of all the centuries he’d spent that same way.

He assumed Aziraphale had seen it differently, that he, like the others, saw the dance the way it was supposed to be seen. That the important bit was in the coming together, the flow, your partner’s hand… he’d assumed that, unlike Crowley, Aziraphale hadn’t been fixated on what was happening in the margins. Had he been wrong?

Aziraphale wanted to dance again, but he wanted something different. He was watching the humans pairing off and it wasn’t that much of a stretch of the imagination to think he could want that for himself.

Want it... with Crowley?

As the implications of _that_ idea staggered him, Crowley opened and closed his mouth several times trying to say words... any words, really, besides _any way you want me, I'm yours._

What he finally managed to say was, “We could go again. Opposite sides this time.”

Aziraphale looked away from the dance and back to Crowley, a strange smile on his face. “Interesting choice of words from you, dear boy.”

“Oh, shut up, will you?” He grumbled. “Do you want to, or not?”

“Dressed like that?” The angel asked, giving Crowley a long once-over.

For a moment, Crowley was completely baffled. He'd been wearing the same clothes all night, and it hadn't been a problem before. He glanced back at the dancers, then down at himself.

_Ah,_ he thought, _we're both man-shaped tonight_. Humans and their gender rules.

“I can go change,” He said.

The angel shook his head a bit too quickly. “No, no. That's quite alright.”

“Big party,” Crowley drawled, looking over the line of women for a silhouette of a costume to steal, “Everyone's in masks. Nobody would notice if I just stepped out a moment...”

“It isn't that, it's just...” Aziraphale bit his lip as he chose his words. “I mean only to say it isn’t… required. Of course. You can if you want to, you know that. I'm sure that you would be quite fetching, however you were, you always are, only... Please don't feel you must change on my account.”

_Fetching?_

Crowley looked away, keenly aware of how hot his face was under the mask. “You wanted to dance.”

“I did. I... still do.” Aziraphale sighed. “It's just... well, we can't. We can't.”

“We're not us tonight, remember? We're them. Anything they can do, we can do.”

Crowley caught sight of the angel's eyes and his inhuman heart began to beat so loudly in his ears he couldn't hear the music anymore. There it was again. That mischief.

“I may have an idea,” Aziraphale breathed. He straightened his waistcoat, tugged his cravat a little tighter, and gave an excited little wiggle that sent a jolt of pure electricity along Crowley's spine. He backed away slowly, leaving his cup on the table, and stared at Crowley as though he could see right through the lace panels in the demon's mask and into his eyes. All Crowley could do was stand there, mouth open, feeling like a creature encased in amber as he watched the angel leave.

“Well?” Aziraphale asked, his stage whisper carrying across the distance between them, “Are you coming?”

Just like that, the amber was gone, and he could move again. _Had to_ move again, because the angel was leaving and asking for him to follow.

_Wherever you go, angel,_ he thought, _I'll follow you there._

The last traces of alcohol in his system evaporated away like water on a hot pan. His cup was no longer in his hand and Crowley had no idea where on Earth or in Hell it could have gotten off to, though he did not really care about the answer. All he was aware of was that head of blond curls weaving through the crowd, past the dancers and the tables and the musicians, towards a nondescript little door at the end of a side hall. Aziraphale had a head start on him, and in that moment where the door closed between them Crowley feared the angel wouldn't be there when he opened it again. Hand on the handle, he hesitated, then pulled himself together and slipped through.

There he was, blond curls and a beaming smile, still leading him ever onwards. They had completely left the ball behind them at this point, left the part of the opera house meant for the public. Gone was the gleam of marble, the statues… even the music was fading now. Wherever Aziraphale was taking them was all exposed wooden beams, bare brick, plaster dust on the floors, and paint embedded in the gaps between the boards where it couldn't be scrubbed away.

All against the walls were stacked facsimiles of nature made of wood and stretched muslin. Flat trees, painted rocks, artificial waves... they'd seen the opera those came from together, Crowley remembered, that first week they had arrived in Stockholm. Those waves had crept out across the stage along grooves set into the floor, rocking and tilting as the dancers moved as though being tossed about by the sea. Humans under the stage had been moving the waves, of course, there had been nothing magic about it... but the illusion, while it had lasted, had been beautiful.

They passed a pair of humans tucked up behind a support beam, masks and costumes all askew as they rutted up against one another, right up against the wall. _Just about the same as it was in Will's day, then,_ he thought as he rolled his eyes, and then Aziraphale caught sight of the couple and giggled, actually _giggled_ , and Crowley was done thinking for the time being.

Down a spiral staircase, through more narrow wood-beamed halls, and to a pair of doors as tall as the ceiling. Inside was a wide space, a workshop. It was a little bigger than the foyer where the ball was being held and littered with tools of every description and set pieces in every stage of construction. On all sides they were surrounded by plaster statues of men and beasts, by thrones and chairs and sections of faux-stone wall. Painted drapes hung from the ceiling to dry, depicting ancient cities and far-off landscapes and forests and the sea.

As Crowley circled the space to check the dark corners for any lurkers, sawdust soft under his shoes like snow, he noticed something odd about a few of the drapes. They were painted not on canvas but on some thin gauze. When he looked from certain positions in the room, he could see the images painted on them bright and clear, as if they were solid objects, but when the light passed through them another way, the image and even the fabric itself seemed to fade away. _More illusions,_ he thought. Clever humans.

He felt a pulse of divine power and turned to see Aziraphale sealing those two large doors behind them. Whatever he had done felt strong, like it was intended to ward away more than just humans.

Crowley felt around the space with his infernal senses. They were completely alone here, save the rats sleeping in their nest inside a long-abandoned plaster urn in the back of the room. For the first time in what felt like ages, he let himself relax by a degree.

“We’re directly below the foyer,” Aziraphale said, his low voice carrying in the quiet workshop, “Though I'm afraid the music is a bit muffled.”

Until Aziraphale mentioned it, Crowley hadn't noticed the music at all. It was there, yes, louder than it had been in the hallways outside, but it was faint and indistinct. He glared up at the high ceilings, the wooden vaulting—this place could be like a cathedral if it got its act together, a cathedral that didn't burn him to walk in it. Crowley tugged slightly at the fabric of reality and the acoustics of the room improved. The stamp of the dancers' feet, the murmur of voices, the laughter overhead, all of that stayed muffled, but after the shifting had stilled it sounded as if the musicians were right there in the room with them.

Aziraphale's face lit up—perhaps even literally, as it seemed a bit brighter in the dim workshop after he smiled. He took a hesitant step towards Crowley, and even the uncertainty in his voice couldn't mask his excitement.

“I won't know what I'm doing. I don't know the steps.”

“You didn't know the steps earlier,” Crowley teased, stepping closer, “That didn't stop you.”

“I could watch the other dancers earlier,” he said, glancing up at the ceiling, “Now I won't know what to do.”

“I don't know all the steps either.” Crowley extended a hand and waited. It was up to Aziraphale now how this went. “We don't have to. No one's watching. We can make it up as we go.”

_Like we always have._

Aziraphale took his hand.

They started off with another minuet, a repeat of that first dance. Slow and simple, minimal contact, something to ease them into this fleeting, fragile thing they dared to do. Circles and spirals, orbits. Easy. Crowley had been orbiting Aziraphale since the beginning—not _The Beginning_ , of course, but since their own, the beginning that mattered. It was second nature at this point for him. He could do it in his sleep. Had, in fact, across centuries worth of dreams. Nothing in those dreams had prepared him for this moment, for watching the path of their orbits change. Up until now he’d been a moon around a planet, a satellite drifting in Aziraphale’s gravitational pull for so long he had forgotten what it felt like to float along alone. He wasn’t used to being orbited in return, to feeling like half of a binary star system.

Aziraphale’s movements were still so very sharp and precise. Pacing together like this, that look of utter concentration on the angel’s face, he was reminded of the night they’d spent together in Florence, when the Guardian of the Eastern Gate had taught Crowley how to handle himself around the business end of a sword… before something went wrong between them like it always did and he’d earned himself two decades of silence.

That had been a very different situation, though. They’d still been playing at being enemies back then, and now… well, Crowley wasn’t sure what they were playing at being anymore, but he thought he liked it a great deal more. Now, at least for this one night, for this one dance, Crowley could trust that whenever Aziraphale let go of his hand and drifted away, he wasn’t going to be _gone_. He could trust that the angel would come back, in a way he couldn’t fully believe in his life outside of this game they’d made.

_Don’t think about the strength of those hands,_ Crowley reminded himself as they spiraled in to meet in the middle, _you know how strong he is, you’ve seen it. Felt it._ Crowley’s human corporation weighed less than the boulders that sealed up the gate of Eden.

_Don’t think about the heat,_ Crowley begged himself. Don’t think about the heat of Aziraphale’s palm, don’t ask if it could make this cold, slithering thing inside him warm. Don’t think about the heat just under his own skin, waiting to break free and burn the angel up—not Hellfire, no. Nothing of Hell at all. Something all too Earthly, all too base, but every bit as dangerous.

They came together again and Aziraphale didn't take his hand. He was smiling, but he didn't take his hand. He was smiling, and his mouth was moving, and it took a moment for Crowley's brain to process what he was saying.

“—better this time, don't you think?"

There wasn't any music playing. When had it stopped?

Crowley wiggled his hand around like he was making a point, then dropped it to his side. “S'just a matter of practice.”

“Well, go on then,” the angel said, his voice low, “show me another.”

Crowley looked at Aziraphale like he hoped the answers would be written in the lines of the angel's face, trying to puzzle out what the devil it was he wanted. Up in their box he’d said he’d watched Crowley dance before—where had it been? Budapest? No. Belfast. Belfast and… Constantinople. It had been a wedding in Constantinople, he remembered that much, but in Belfast… probably some kind of a feast or something like that. Both dances had been fast, the music percussive… Aziraphale had seemed to enjoy dancing fast earlier. Was that what he was looking for?

The music wouldn’t be right for either of the dances Aziraphale had mentioned and there wasn’t much, short of a pretty hefty miracle, Crowley could do to change that. They were supposed to be playing human, and so far, Aziraphale had ignored Crowley’s quick little nudges to reality, but he didn’t want to do anything to break the illusion. Manifesting a whole drummer into the midst of the violinists and cellists upstairs would probably be too far, but… perhaps a nudge to the tempo could work? Besides, it would be funny to think about all those humans in the foyer trying to keep up with a pace literally set by fiendish design.

They started off with a clear purpose and the conviction that they would try to keep to a consistent set of steps. This plan quickly fell apart. Truth be told, Crowley had been copying the human dancers upstairs as much as Aziraphale had been. He’d _done_ all of those dances, yes, but in five thousand years going on six, so many of them blurred together. The speed was something they found they could maintain but the steps were a lost cause entirely. They both truly were making it up as they went, and Crowley was playing fast and loose with the concept of rhythm. It was fun, though, and Aziraphale seemed to agree.

The part of Crowley’s mind that wasn’t reveling in the present was reminding him, frequently and insistently, that this was the most he and the angel had physically touched in millennia, perhaps in their lives. First it was palm-to-palm, then the elbows got involved, then it was a hand on the shoulder and twirls under Aziraphale’s arm, too fast to linger and think too much about it. There’d be time for that later.

Somehow, several songs in, both of Crowley’s hands had ended up on Aziraphale’s shoulders, and the angel’s had gone up to mirror them. It was an awkward angle, because if they didn’t step at exactly the same time, they ran the risk of pulling each other in too close. After they nearly knocked heads for the third time, Aziraphale’s hands dropped to Crowley’s hips and Crowley wondered if he really _had_ cracked his head, if that could explain why he felt so dazed.

The music rose, swelled, and Aziraphale beamed. The hands on Crowley’s hips slid up to his ribs, lifting him off of the ground and spinning him like he was weightless.

There would come a day in the future when they could dance together again without fear of who might see them. The combination of Aziraphale’s divine strength and Crowley’s serpentine flexibility, those facets of their inhuman physiology, would make them a truly impressive pair of swing dance partners—if a bit dangerous to nearby bystanders unable to get clear of those snakeskin boots in time.

In the meantime, though, as Aziraphale settled Crowley’s boots back against the workshop floor, the demon seemed to be mostly just a danger to himself. There was a high, sharp whine and Crowley was mortified to discover that it had come from his own throat. Aziraphale’s laughter told him the angel was definitely aware of it, and Crowley took a moment to reflect with gratitude on the fact that he’d chosen to wear internal genitalia tonight. The breeches this decade were thin, tight, and unforgiving. If he had made a different sort of Effort, Aziraphale would have also been made aware of the precise effect his angelic strength had on Crowley.

When the song ended, they broke apart, both breathing as hard as their bodies wanted them to even though they did not need to breathe at all, and Crowley assumed they’d reached the natural conclusion of the night’s escapades. Instead, the angel took him by the forearm and asked him a breathless question.

“You said...” Aziraphale hesitated, then continued in a firmer voice, “You said that you'd danced in the court of the Sun King.”

“Yeah... honestly, you didn't miss much. All those mirrors, all those candles, way too many people…” he babbled. “Hot as Hell, and, y’know. I’ve been there. I'm surprised no one died of heat stroke.”

The angel continued as if Crowley hadn't spoken. “Have you ever heard of the gavotte?”

Crowley blinked. The humans had invented it, naturally, but the kissing dance had been featured in one of his more successful reports back downstairs. Check marks all down his columns for lust and envy to satisfy Dagon's infernal quotas. All it had taken was kissing a room full of strangers—not something he'd be particularly keen to repeat, but he had to have been seen to be doing _something_ and that was easier than the alternatives.

“Have I heard of— _of course I've bloody well heard of it!_ How have _you_ heard of it?”

“I read.” Aziraphale huffed, affronted.

“Right. ‘Course you have.”

“Could you show me?”

“I could, yeah. When I did it last there were more than two people, but I can make it work…” Crowley trailed off, his musings about how to reduce the choreography to a partnered dance crashing to a stop as he realized how very wrong this could all go. “Aziraphale. What all did you read about the gavotte?”

Aziraphale rattled off a few anecdotes about places the dance had been performed, and about composers who had written music to dance it to, but he sounded uncertain. Crowley still didn’t know what he knew, what his expectations would be. He didn’t want to press, but he couldn’t risk this.

“Anything else?” He asked, watching Aziraphale’s face.

“Well, I know you also give your partners flowers.” There was a little pause, so quick that someone who didn't know the angel quite as well could have missed it. Crowley saw his throat work as he swallowed. “If you have flowers. If you don't have flowers, you have to give them kisses.”

Crowley stared at him. “Right.”

Whole universes could have been born and died in the stretch of silence before Aziraphale spoke. When he finally did, his voice was quiet and his eyes flitted between Crowley’s face and the door. “I don't have any flowers.”

In the years that followed, Crowley would think back on this moment and thank whatever force had been at play in that dim workshop—clearly it hadn't been either God or Satan, as neither of them ever gave much of a shit about what Crowley wanted—that prevented him from saying, _“What kind of flowers would you like, angel?”_

Instead, he took the hand he'd begun to raise to perform the miracle, straightened his mask, then said, “Neither do I.”

“Pity.” Although Aziraphale sounded tense, Crowley could tell that he was looking upon the face of an angel who did not regret what he’d said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Note:**  
>  I wasn't able to find detailed floor plans of the work spaces in the Gustavian Stockholm Opera House, but I studied theatre history and architecture in undergrad and was able to piece together something that would have been fairly accurate to the time.
> 
> The gauzy material Crowley looks at is called "Scrim" and it is one of my favorite pieces of theatre magic of all time. I am in love with it. It is old as balls and still looks cool onstage today. I confess, part of why I set this fic where I did was just so I could write a love letter to scrim. It can make a whole scene change just with a shift in the lighting.


	6. Gavotte

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a little thing that finally did it, that finally made his brain catch up with his body. He felt the vibration of it against his lips before he really even heard it, one of those quiet satisfied hums Aziraphale made when he was eating something delicious, something he savored… The reality of the situation hit Crowley with enough force upon impact to shatter a planet.
> 
> The angel was kissing him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might have seen from the tags that have been added, this fic now contains a fairly explicit sex scene. It is, like... a good half of this chapter, tbh. 
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day.
> 
> This isn't a songfic at all, but I'd like to offer you something to go with this, if you want. It's like a wine recommendation. This fic-reading experience pairs well with [_All This and Heaven Too_ by Florence + the Machine.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNE2meQCI-Q) Cheers.

“Right,” Crowley said, pushing a long breath out from his superfluous lungs. With more confidence than he felt, he beckoned for Aziraphale to come closer. “Well, get over here, then.” He held the hand up at his side, open in invitation. Aziraphale sidled up beside him, his palm a warm weight against Crowley’s.

The music obliged the demon’s unspoken demand and slowed to a pace that would let him teach, that would let him linger. Aziraphale seemed surer of the steps with this one than he had with the other dances, and Crowley wondered if he’d memorized diagrams showing how to do it. _How long had he wanted to do this?_

Three hopping steps to the right, followed by a longer, slower step back left with the toe pointed to lead the way. It's a simple enough thing, or at least it should be, but Crowley doesn't know how he can be expected to keep to the tempo of something as inconsequential as music when his own pulse is beating faster and louder in his ears and his chest and his throat, all threatening to rattle him to pieces. Does Aziraphale know, then, how fast his heart is racing? Does he feel it fluttering beneath the skin where his palm nestles against Crowley's wrist? He must feel it, if he doesn't see it jumping in Crowley's throat as they turn and drift closer together, so close Crowley can see the faint shine of wetness along the angel's bottom lip.

_Three steps forward, one step back._

_Let go of his hand and turn your back to him. Trust he’ll be there when you turn around._

_Take his hand and do it all again._

His thoughts are even faster and more erratic than his heartbeat. Aziraphale takes up both of his hands and they rotate in place— _clockwise first, then counterclockwise, with a little kick out to the side in between to punctuate_ —and Crowley thinks of meteors. Sometimes they pass so close to Earth he wonders if all that talk of an Antichrist and Armageddon was all just poetic license, and the world is really going to end when a hunk of space rock comes whizzing by at just the wrong angle and wipes everything out in a blink. This moment, as they drift apart again and bow to one another, the angel's eyes bright in the dim light as he watches Crowley's face... this moment feels a lot like seeing the meteor coming and wondering if _this_ will finally be the time it hits.

He knows it won't. It might come very damn close, it might spark and burn against the edges of the atmosphere as it hurtles past, but in the end, it will be nothing more than another close call. Something to look back on, a memory thrill and anticipation and blazing light against the dark of night that stretches on and on with no dawn in sight. It's just as well that they don't collide, he reminds himself. The impact, if it were to happen, might very well be as dangerous as any meteor, at least to the two of them. At the very least, the crater it would make in Crowley would likely shatter him.

_Don't forget why this is impossible._

Aziraphale isn't cruel. At the very least, he isn't cruel _on purpose_. Over the years, Crowley has grown used to being kept at a distance, to being reminded of his place as a fiend of the pit. That isn't _cruelty_ , it's pragmatism. It's safe. Crowley never had the right to expect anything different. What Crowley _isn't_ used to is the angel reaching into his chest, wrapping those gentle fingers of his around the tender, raw thing Crowley hides behind his ribs, and _tugging on it_ like it was a leash. Crowley would follow, of course. He _is_ following. He's following, and he knows he's being led nowhere other than, at best, a mumbled apology and another goodbye. He knows after this is all over he'll be left on his own again to pick his love up off the floor and try to spool it back inside himself, _knows_ that it won't ever all fit inside again now that it's been dragged out in the open. He still follows, though. He'd follow him anywhere.

As much as he knows this will hurt later, he can't bring himself to blame Aziraphale. The angel is a creature of pleasure and fun, and he knows he’d never find those by knowingly tormenting someone else. This is all a game to him, an excuse to flirt and play pretend and—though he knows Aziraphale would deny it—unyoke himself from Heaven for the span of an evening. He isn't cruel, so he must not know that what he's doing is pulling Crowley apart. The angel must not know how loved he is, or he else would stay far, _far_ away from Crowley and this endless need he feels.

They circled close again under their raised hands, close enough that Crowley could count the angel’s eyelashes even in the shadow of his mask. One more step closer, close enough to feel the fabric of their waistcoats brush together. Aziraphale's eyes dropped lower, and Crowley's thoughts stuttered to a stop as he felt the angel's gaze on his lips like a physical touch. They were close enough now he could feel the heat radiating from the angel's cheek.

They drifted apart again, hand in hand but miles apart. No collision, just a streak of light through the dark. _He isn't cruel,_ Crowley reminded himself, _he doesn't know how much this means. I never let him see._.

Crowley floated through the next part of the dance in a daze, acting on muscle memory a century out of practice. Three steps forward, one step back. Simple. Hell only knew what his feet were actually doing, if he was even close to the tempo anymore. What a poor teacher he’d turned out to be.

He felt both of Aziraphale’s hands in his again, vaguely registering that they were spinning.

_Clockwise. A little kick. Counterclockwise._

_Back away, bow._

_Lift your arms high, circle in close enough to feel his breath on your cheek, knowing that it won’t ever—_

Aziraphale’s lips, soft and warm, pressed against his cheek and Crowley was snapped out of his daze and back into the moment so fast he was surprised it didn’t discorporate him. The angel’s fingertips lingered against his palm as they parted again.

Crowley rushed through the next part of the dance, practically tripping over his own feet in his haste to get to the part where they got to do that again. Maybe do it again properly this time, all slow and gentle like he knew the angel would want it. It wasn’t that they’d never kissed before, no. It used to be a common greeting, a casual thing. They’d done it so many times before, all those years ago, until that last time—not that they _knew_ it was a last time yet. If he’d known, Crowley would have stretched time out forever, until his strength gave out, so he could savor that moment for almost as long as it deserved. They’d kissed before, yes, as a casual touch, but they’d never kissed as…

_Oh._

Suddenly, all of this made a lot more sense. More sense than Aziraphale finally, improbably admitting he _wanted Crowley,_ anyway.

Social norms had shifted in this part of the world over the past few centuries, and people tended to keep their distance these days. Too much casual touch between human friends could be dangerous, in much the same way it was for the two of them. It probably wasn’t very touchy up in Heaven, and he doubted Aziraphale got very much casual touch from the people he blessed, either. It was a bit less of a hands-on job than tempting could be at times, not that what Crowley did for work really counted. Not that any of the touches that came with Hell counted. Even Crowley could admit he missed the way things used to be, when they could share pecks on the cheek as freely as they shared wine. Aziraphale probably missed it, too. That was almost certainly what this was about. He probably was just enjoying the feeling of contact and had been too—too—too _Aziraphale_ to ask for it directly.

Crowley could have screamed at himself, but he thankfully made sure that screaming remained internal instead of external. He had been so, _so_ close to ruining all of this.

_Hands. Clockwise. A little kick. Counterclockwise._

He bit down on the foolish smile that had broken on his face, tightened the hand that wasn’t holding Aziraphale’s into a fist around the fabric of his breeches at his hip, desperate to drag himself back down to reality and out of that frankly insane line of thinking he’d stumbled into.

_Break away. Bow—this time looking at the floor and not the angel’s bloody face._

The dance was almost over. He could survive this, enjoy the rest of their time together, and then be furious with himself later.

_Circle in together, arms raised, close enough to touch…_

He felt the angel’s breath against his cheek, saw the pink flush on his face under the edge of his mask, saw those eyelashes flutter as he glanced down and closed his eyes…

Aziraphale’s other hand cupped Crowley’s jaw as he pulled him in closer still. His lips were warm and soft as he kissed him, slow and gentle just like Crowley wanted.

The music kept playing, and they did not break away.

Crowley did not know quite what to do, but thankfully his corporation, which had also been waiting for exactly this moment for nearly six thousand years, made the decision for him. He was kissing the angel back before he even fully realized what was happening. It was a little thing that finally did it, that finally made his brain catch up with his body. He felt the vibration of it against his lips before he really even heard it, one of those quiet satisfied hums Aziraphale made when he was eating something delicious, something he savored… The reality of the situation hit Crowley with enough force upon impact to shatter a planet.

The angel was kissing him.

The angel was kissing _him_ , and he was kissing him back, and Aziraphale was making those same noises he made the last time they ate wine-poached pears together, that time the juices had spilled down his chin all sweet and sticky and Crowley’d had to hold on to the armrests of his chair to stop himself from crawling across the table and licking him clean. Aziraphale was making those same noises again, here, _now_ , while kissing Crowley. Like Crowley was some sticky, sweet, delicious thing he wanted to savor and— _fuck_ , that line of thinking shot straight down through his belly and ended up right between his legs.

He’d deny it if anyone ever questioned him about it, but his knees all of a sudden felt very much like jelly and his legs almost went out from underneath him. It wouldn’t have been a bad way to end up, on his knees at his angel’s feet. He’d thought about that particular scenario more than was probably healthy. Instead, Aziraphale seemed to sense he needed the support and shifted their joined hands—still raised over their heads, the last remaining indication that they were ostensibly dancing the gavotte right now—fingers trailing down his forearm and ribs, dragging against the silk of his coat, until the angel’s arm was around the small of Crowley’s back.

Crowley couldn’t remember the last time he’d been held, and with his mind as scattered as it was in the moment, he couldn’t say with any certainty if he ever _had_ been held, even Before. It didn’t matter. He immediately decided he liked it. He _especially_ liked being held in such a way that reminded him how strong those arms were, that they could support his whole weight and then some. He’d always thought he would like it, all the times he’d imagined it before, but the reality was so much better than anything he could have invented. Before he could stop himself, his tongue had forked and flickered out of his mouth to taste the smile on the angel’s lips.

Aziraphale let out a squeak, his eyes popping open in surprise, and Crowley felt the sharp clutch of fear and guilt in his stomach. _Too much,_ some voice in his head screamed, _you’ve fucked it up! Why did you have to push him?_

Then Aziraphale was kissing him deeper, that holy tongue that spoke the fiery Word of Heaven hot in his mouth, and that voice in Crowley’s head went silent. Everything in his head went silent. He was vaguely aware that he was being moved, that Aziraphale was walking them backwards, and that they bumped into something. The angel had him crowded up against some worktable, holding him steady with those strong arms around his waist, and Crowley let himself melt into the embrace, turning off the lungs in his corporation so he didn’t have to stop this for even the span of time needed to take a breath.

He had no idea how long they kissed, how long he got to hear the angel panting into his own mouth, how long he pretended not to hear the needy sounds he was making in return. Time was an abstract concept, but what _wasn’t_ abstract was the solid weight of Aziraphale’s body against his own, the feel of muscle and bone and fat moving under his shaking hands. That was the most real thing Crowley thought he’d ever felt. There was a long line of contact between them, their bodies connected from lips to hips, and— _oh, fuck me sideways_ —the unmistakable nudge of an erection pressing up against Crowley’s thigh. Crowley was affected, too—how could he not be? His heart was racing. He felt it in his ears and his chest and his throat and between his legs and he _wants_ , he wants so much he ached with it.

Aziraphale pulled his mouth away, and Crowley almost chased after him. He didn’t go far, resting his forehead against Crowley’s and stroking a hand against his cheek, and his words were almost lost between heavy breaths.

“Do you—do you want to—?”

_“Yes,”_ Crowley answered, not sure what he was being asked but more certain than he’d been in his whole life that he wanted to agree to it.

The angel looked around them, though for what Crowley couldn’t say. He wasn’t interested in looking anywhere else except Aziraphale’s face. After a moment, Aziraphale seemed to find whatever it was he’d been hoping to see, and he took Crowley by the hands and led him backwards through the crowded workshop towards some open nook at the feet of a plaster elephant. Mouth dry with anticipation, he saw Aziraphale tilt back and sit on the floor, looking up at him with a look of pure mischief and open arms. Crowley tried to follow him down, wanted to slip into that lap and wrap his legs around that waist, but his knees were still mostly jelly and he found himself tipping forward faster than he meant. The next thing he knew, he landed face-first in a sprawl on something soft and dusty. Curtains. They were sitting on a pile of stage curtains. He had to work to suppress the high, hysterical giggle that threatened to burst out of him. _I love this idiot,_ he thought, the words ringing through him like the resonant peal of a bell, clearer and louder than he’d let himself think in years.

He felt strong, warm arms wrap around his chest. One hand on his shoulder, heat sinking into his skin through the fabric of his sleeve where the palm touched him. One hand on his hip, squeezing the bone there gently. As Aziraphale lifted him up onto his knees, Crowley focused on the press of his crossed arms instead of the pounding of the blood in his ears. The arms were solid against his stomach and ribs. A grounding thing. A thing that reminded him that this was really happening to him and wasn’t just some dream that had escaped to the outside of his eyelids while he’d let his guard down.

Aziraphale settled against him, _embraced him_ , and Crowley could no longer just focus on his arms, couldn’t focus on any one thing in the face of this impossible thing. His chest against his shoulder blades. The soft swell of his stomach pressing into the small of his back like it was made to fit there. His thighs bracketing one of Crowley’s calves and sinking them both deeper into the pile of curtains. His breath hot on the shell of his ear as he touched the side of his face to Crowley’s neck. On instinct, Crowley writhed in a desperate attempt to get closer, arching his back and tilting his head against Aziraphale’s shoulder, craning his neck like if he moved in just the right way, he’d feel those lips against his throat.

The hands began to roam—down his ribs, across his chest, fingers tracing his collarbones through black linen. The barrier of fabric between them was suddenly intolerable, and Crowley fought the urge to miracle away every stitch of clothing he had on. Apparently, Aziraphale felt similarly, because he closed one of his hands to clutch at a fistful of Crowley’s shirt where it was tucked into his breeches.

“Is it alright if I…?” The angel’s voice was low and breathless against his ear, and Crowley shivered in spite of the warmth of his arms.

_Untuck my shirt? Banish it? Tear it in half? Fuck me if I care._

“Y-yeah, go for it.”

With deft, gentle fingers, Aziraphale unbuttoned Crowley’s waistcoat and let it hang open. He tugged the bottom of the shirt free and slipped a hand up under it, tracing his fingertips against his bare skin. It tickled slightly against Crowley’s belly, but then the angel splayed his fingers flat against his sternum and began to gently scratch the hair there with his smooth fingernails. Crowley bit his lip to muffle a groan and pressed back into the warmth and softness behind him, wishing for one mad second he could sink into the feeling of it like a bath.

He shifted his hips and spread his legs further apart, felt them slide a little against the curtains beneath him. Aziraphale chuckled behind him, a thing he felt more so than heard in the vibration of his chest and in the huff of air, hot and damp, that blew through the fabric of Crowley’s domino hood to warm his cheek. The angel’s other hand dropped to Crowley’s thigh, near his knee, and began to stroke circles and patterns his mind was too scattered to interpret against the flesh of his leg through the silk of his breeches.

Aziraphale slid closer, slipping his knee between Crowley’s splayed legs, right up against— _oh fuck_. He couldn’t help himself, he rutted against him, desperate for the feeling of that soft, strong thigh between his legs, for the feeling of _Aziraphale_ , undeniably hard and straining against his breeches. Crowley choked out some broken sound that could have been a moan as easily as it could have been a sob, and Crowley himself didn’t know which it was. Helplessly turned on, his mind reeling, he rocked his hips, desperate for any friction he could get. How many times had he imagined this very thing, cold in his own bed with only his own hands for company, and yet here he was, warm and held and… wanted?

His mind skittered away from that last part, the fact that he was being felt up in the basement of an opera house by his angel— _the_ angel—already more than he could process. He couldn’t make that last leap of faith, couldn’t shake himself of that fear and uncertainty. He had proof that Aziraphale was aroused, felt that proof pressing against his ass… but was he aroused at knowing it was _Crowley_ he was touching, or was this just his corporation’s physiological reaction to having another warm body in his arms?

Aziraphale laid his palm flat against Crowley’s knee and dragged it up his thigh, his thumb sliding along the crease between his leg and pelvis. Crowley’s hips bucked again, grinding down against the angel’s leg, desperate for any kind of stimulation he could get… and then he froze, screwed his eyes shut and stopped breathing, suddenly afraid that if he moved, he’d break whatever illusion convinced Aziraphale that this horrible, _horrible_ idea was something they could do. The angel’s hand, almost over the waistband of Crowley’s breeches and onto his stomach, stilled.

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale asked, starting to pull his hands away. Crowley grabbed his wrist and held his hand in place, nodding his head.

“We can stop, if you want.” Crowley shook his head, hard. The angel’s other hand, the one still up under his shirt and on his chest, began to rub soothing circles into his skin. “Do you… do you want to keep going?”

Dizzy with the potential for what _keep going_ could mean, he nodded again. Aziraphale guided their hands lower, to the fall-front of his breeches, and asked, “Do you want me to touch you?”

Crowley’s head lolled back on the angel’s shoulder as he made a gesture that was less a nod and more of a twitch, a low whine of need in his throat.

“Is it hard for you to talk right now?”

He swallowed and pulled himself together enough to say, “Yeah.”

The hand on his chest slipped away and wrapped around one of Crowley’s, twining their fingers together and giving a little squeeze. Aziraphale lifted their hands up and pressed a chaste kiss to his knuckles. Crowley felt like his heart was trying to beat itself to death on the inside of his ribs.

“Here,” Aziraphale said, resting Crowley’s hand in the crook of his own arm, “Squeeze twice if you want me to stop. Alright?”

The angel’s fingers laid still on the buttons until Crowley nodded. He felt Aziraphale press his lips against the back of his head, felt him _smile_ , as he undid just enough of the buttons to loosen the flap, and then slipped his hand inside.

Crowley couldn’t suppress the hiss of pleasure that he made as he felt the touch of those warm fingers slide along his pubic bone and lower still, featherlight as they explored between his legs and found him wet and wanting.

“You’ve given yourself a quim?” There was something of a question in how Aziraphale said it, and something of amusement.

“I can change if you—”

“Oh, goodness, no. Not on my account, at least. I was just surprised, that's all.” Aziraphale ran his fingers through the thatch of pubic hair beneath his hand, gently scratching, and even as feverish with lust as Crowley felt, he relaxed into the touch. “And not in a bad way, I mean. It's just that last time you had a cock.”

_Last time?_ Crowley had absolutely no idea what to make of that statement. _Last time for what?_ The last time they saw one another nude would probably have been in… Rome. The other alternative was that Aziraphale had been referring to a much more recent encounter, one where Crowley had been clothed but the angel had noticed his current Effort anyway, and _that_ idea was every bit as appealing as it was maddeningly improbable. No. Rome was probably what Aziraphale had meant, and as they'd more than likely been in a public bath it would make sense that he'd remember that Crowley had been sporting a...

Crowley's mind caught up with the latter part of Aziraphale's statement and groaned as he realized the angel had called it a _cock_. For all his many fantasies of finding that the angel had a filthy mouth on him, he'd always thought the reality—not that he thought he'd ever get to see it, mind—would involve much more shyness and dreadfully delicate euphemism.

“I—it's cold.” He managed to choke out.

“Oh, oh dear. I suppose I could...”

Aziraphale began to raise his other hand, and Crowley knew was about to snap his fingers. He also knew he _could not_ allow that to happen. _No miracles._ They wouldn’t be here at all as an angel and a demon, the only reason this stupid, foolish thing was happening at all was that they were pretending to be human. Human Aziraphale was the one who kissed, who touched… and while some part of Crowley understood that meant that the real Aziraphale wanted that, too, he also understood that this was the kind of thing Aziraphale would never do without about fifteen layers of contrivance.

Crowley squeezed the angel’s arm, gently but firmly enough to get his attention. Aziraphale paused, waiting for Crowley to force his tongue back into compliance and say enough of the right words the right way to keep this from stopping.

“No, s’fine. Not cold in here. Out there. It’s, uh. Snow.” He hated how shaky he sounded, how breathless. _Keep it casual. Don’t let him see how much it means._ Crowley cleared his throat and hummed low in the back of his throat. “I change it up sometimes but this time I, uh. I went for the more internal-ly bits. Didn't want to freeze my balls off.”

The angel laughed, low and breathy, and _oh_ , how Crowley wished he could see his face. “I suppose that makes sense. I know how you tend to run cold.” Aziraphale slipped two fingers between Crowley’s labia and Crowley groaned. “Besides, these are quite lovely. I know I’ve enjoyed mine, at least, on those occasions when I made this particular Effort myself.”

Crowley’s mind flooded with a wave of images of what that might look like, the angel touching himself, finding pleasure in his own clit—swiftly followed by still more images of him touching his cock, his asshole, and several different Efforts of Crowley’s. It all paled to the reality of the situation, the firm but gentle stroking of the angel’s hands between his lips. It wasn’t enough, almost teasing in its gentleness, but the twist of Aziraphale’s wrist and the slide of his hand as he coated his fingers in slick was a promise of more to come.

Aziraphale pulled back his hand and began to rub those two slicked fingers against Crowley’s clit, triggering another buck of the demon’s hips and a full-body shiver. Crowley bit his lip, almost hard enough to draw blood, because if he didn’t, he knew he would say something terrible. The words were pressing up inside his lungs, his throat, his mouth, only held back by the clench of his teeth. Crowley couldn't even say his name, the name that always felt like a kiss of benediction on his lips, though it never burned his damned tongue to speak it. He couldn't say it because he knew if he tried, _“Aziraphale”_ would become _“angel”_ and that would remind them both of who they really were, and this would stop.

If Crowley were to line up, end-to-end, all of the seconds he had spent thinking (and dreaming, and daydreaming, and fantasizing) about Aziraphale, he knew it would likely total to several hundred years’ worth of thoughts. He'd had the time to imagine millions of different ways their first time to kiss might go, their first time to touch... he'd probably imagined every physically possible configuration of the current scenario, and several more configurations that could become physically possible given some tweaking to the fabric of reality or by adjusting the function of their corporations.

There had always been a check on his imagination, though. No matter how desperately he thought about what might be, he always had the unshakable understanding that it never _would_ be. There was a feeling of certainty to it that helped him to know his place. Almost like a comfort, for all that it hurt. Two sides of a coin, really. As constant and unfailing companions as his want and longing and care were to him across his long life, the reverse was just as unchanging. Crowley wanted Aziraphale, Aziraphale didn't want Crowley. That was just how it went. He was used to it by now. He felt liked, sure. It had been centuries since he believed the angel's denials that they weren't friends. But he wasn't _loved_ , not in any the same way, at least, and he never would be.

It was a rule that helped him to manage his own expectations and keep from pushing too far. It was a rule that kept them both safe, because if the natural order were to be upended, if this feeling was _mutual_... there wasn't anything in existence more dangerous than that.

Crowley never been very good with rules, but this felt more like a law of nature, as a part of the fabric of their world as gravity. It was like a tether keeping him Earth-bound, and now that it had been cut, he felt like he'd been flung off into space with no sense of direction and nothing to hang on to.

With his world upended, Crowley did what he could to cope: he focused on sensation, on physical touch, the sound of the angel's breath in his ear. His hand in the crook of Aziraphale's elbow. The feeling of being held against that soft, strong chest. A warm, broad palm against his sternum. Aziraphale’s thumb sending waves of pleasure through his body as it circled Crowley’s clit. The teasing press of a fingertip against his entrance.

_The rest doesn’t matter,_ he thought, frantic, _if one secret shag in a basement is all I ever get, it’ll be enough. It’ll be more than I deserve._

“Inside?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley’s answering nod turned into a shuddering jerk of the head as he felt one thick finger slip inside him. It was only a hint of a stretch, but it felt so good to finally have something in him after waiting so long, empty. Crowley rocked his hips, grinding his clit against the heel of Aziraphale’s hand. It was getting harder and harder to stay quiet, so he pressed his hand over his mouth and breathed hard through his nose. It wasn’t long before the angel was asking him if he wanted a second finger, and he answered with a muffled whine, a canting of his hips, and a squeeze of the angel’s bicep.

If the feeling of one of Aziraphale’s fingers in him had been _good_ , the feeling of two, crooking inside him just so until Crowley’s insides felt like they’d been turned to liquid, hot and tingly even as the rest of his muscles began to tense… two was probably divine enough to kill him.

_Satan,_ all he wanted was to fall forward, spread his legs as far as they’d go, and find out what it would feel like to get that cock in him. He wanted Aziraphale’s other hand on his back, or even on the back of his neck, holding him down—holding him _together_ —with that angelic strength. He wanted Aziraphale to take his pleasure however he wanted, he wanted to be _good_ for him.

Minutes later, or maybe a century, Crowley came—delirious, muffling his cry around his own knuckles as he shoved part of his fist into his mouth—clenching around three of Aziraphale’s fingers, a steady drumbeat of _angel, angel, Aziraphale, angel_ echoing through every part of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **PSA!!**  
>  I know they sing a soft, velvety siren call, but please, _please_ don't fuck on a pile of stage curtains unless you know for certain they're recently made. Older curtains are often treated with toxic chemicals and/or made with asbestos inside them to help make them fireproof.
> 
> **Historical Notes:**  
>  I looked into a lot of different versions of the gavotte to try to find something that would work for this scene, including some choreography from The Gondoliers, but this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VggslMGJpEA) is the example I liked best of what a 2-person gavotte could look like.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Well, folks. That's it. That's my first-ever posted smut. I can pretty much guarantee that it won't be the last.


	7. Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The game they’d been playing all night had ended. They couldn’t pretend they were humans anymore, that the things they did had no consequences, that the only people they answered to were themselves.
> 
> Once again, they were an angel and a demon—as they’d been every day for nearly six thousand years, save for one fluke of a night in the dead of winter—and they had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **CW:** gun violence (off-page), minor blood, on-page description of hypothermia
> 
> * * *
> 
>   
> Although the first few paragraphs of this chapter are an immediate continuation of the sex scene at the end of the previous chapter, and contain a fairly explicit depiction of its aftermath/sexual thoughts/minor touching, no further sex will happen in this fic.
> 
> This chapter is where the “Minor Violence” tag and the _hurt_ portion of the “Mild Hurt/Comfort” one come into play, and this is also where they end. Next chapter brings only the _comfort_ portion. The “Light Angst” tag will be our constant companion for the entirety of this fic. I gave these tags the Minor, Mild, and Light qualifiers because that was what I thought best described the content of this story—the pain isn’t the focus. However, if you feel like the content is stronger than that, or have suggestions to tag for things I overlooked, let me know in the comments.
> 
> Without any further rambling, let me present what will probably be the penultimate chapter of _My Grave, My Wedding Bed._

Aziraphale withdrew his hand with a contented sigh, like somehow that had been good for _him,_ not just for the demon slumped over and panting on his hands and knees in front of him. As the last blissful shivers of his orgasm faded away, Crowley rolled over onto his back to look up at the angel. It was unfair that he was still so put together, really, when Crowley felt thoroughly debauched. His mask wasn’t even askew, the prissy bastard. Crowley’s eyes were adept at seeing in the dark, though, and even in the low light the deep navy velvet of Aziraphale’s breeches could not conceal the way the angel was straining against them.

He needed to make Aziraphale feel good. Aziraphale liked feeling good, he _deserved_ to feel good, and due to some freak happenstance, the universe had arranged itself so Crowley of all people got the chance to be the one to bring him that pleasure.

Though his corporation still felt boneless and uncooperative, Crowley pushed himself up on his elbows and reached out a tentative hand to touch—slowly, giving Aziraphale all the time to refuse. He still didn’t know what they were doing, what this _was_ , what the rules were. He wanted so badly to get it right, to be who and what Aziraphale needed him to be, because the idea of getting this wrong was unthinkable.

At the feeling of that first tentative touch, Aziraphale tilted his head back, eyelids fluttering shut, and gave a little breathy whimper. Encouraged, Crowley pressed the heel of his hand against the front of the angel’s breeches, feeling the hard length of him, the damp spot where he’d soaked through the velvet. He must be aching. Fuck, Crowley should have taken care of him first. He couldn’t really believe he got to take care of him _now_ , and he was torn between wanting to get that cock in his mouth and wanting to shuck off his own breeches, spread his legs, and beg Aziraphale to fuck him. With shaking hands, Crowley began to undo the buttons at the front of the angel’s breeches.

Aziraphale’s hand closed around Crowley’s wrist, and Crowley looked up at him expectantly, waiting to hear what it was the angel wanted. He wasn’t looking at Crowley, though. Aziraphale was looking up at the ceiling, a look of worry growing on his face.

“The music, Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered. “Why has the music stopped?”

He didn’t know, hadn’t noticed when it happened, but now that the angel mentioned it, the silence from up above was palpable. It could be dawn for all Crowley knew. They could have stayed down here a full week and he would have been none the wiser.

The angel’s eyes slipped shut again and his lips pursed in concentration. Crowley knew he was focusing on the foyer upstairs, trying to sense the emotions of the humans at the ball. Without warning, Aziraphale leapt off of the pile of curtains like he’d been burned, leaving Crowley reeling from his sudden absence.

“Something’s happened. Something’s wrong.”

Crowley flopped back onto the soft fabric, incapable of moving, incapable of looking away as Aziraphale paced the workshop, eyes locked on the ceiling above him, and absentmindedly slipped his fingers in his mouth one by one to suck them clean. Licking off the taste of _him,_ like he was chasing the last taste of honey smeared on his hand after a plate of baklava… _It was already hard enough to watch him eat, how the_ Heaven _am I ever supposed to be expected to survive seeing that again after this?_

A low whine escaped Crowley’s lips and Aziraphale turned back to look at him. As he took in the sight of him spread out before him, utterly wrecked with his shirt and waistcoat pulled up under his armpits, Aziraphale pulled his thumb out of his mouth with a clearly unintentional _pop_. What skin was visible between the bottom of his mask and the top of his collar burned crimson.

“Make yourself presentable, quickly,” He hissed, eyes frantic. “Hurry, _please_. We need to get up there.”

Mouth still hanging open, Crowley began to try to right his clothing with trembling fingers. Aziraphale began obsessively straightening his own clothes, looking away from Crowley as though he was making some absurd attempt at protecting the modesty of a demon, as though he hadn’t just fucked the sense out him of on his fingers.

“Alright,” Crowley mumbled, once his falls were closed and all his buttons back in place. “Let’s go.”

He tried to stand up and immediately slipped on the tangle of fabric between him and the floor. Before he could hit the ground, Aziraphale’s hand was around his arm, holding him steady and secure. Even once Crowley had his feet under him again, the angel didn’t let go, shifting his hand to slot their fingers together. The whole time they crossed the workshop floor, Aziraphale never let go of his hand, and for a space of time as long as a handful of heartbeats, Crowley actually began to think this might have been the start of something instead of a new, awful kind of ending.

_He kissed me,_ he thought in a daze, looking down at their hands as the angel led them onwards. _He brought us here. He set this up. He wanted this…_

_He wanted me._

But then they were at the threshold of those two tall doors, and Aziraphale was looking at him, and he looked more scared than Crowley had seen him in years. And then he let go.

And then Aziraphale was crossing the threshold back out into the hall, and Crowley was following him, because _of course he was._ Because that was what he did. And as the door to the workshop shut behind them, the distance between them grew, and Aziraphale was looking resolutely ahead and never back behind him, and Crowley was suddenly, keenly aware of what he’d lost. It was over.

_And now_ , he thought, as Aziraphale led them back up a spiral staircase, _comes the part where we both pretend like none of this ever happened._

Maybe _they_ weren’t over, maybe their friendship—their _Arrangement_ —would continue on as it had before, but whatever had happened between them, everything they’d let themselves be in the basement of the Stockholm Royal Opera House… all of _that_ was over, and it would probably never happen again. The game they’d been playing all night had ended. They couldn’t pretend they were humans anymore, that the things they did had no consequences, that the only people they answered to were themselves.

Once again, they were an angel and a demon—as they’d been every day for nearly six thousand years, save for one fluke of a night in the dead of winter—and they had work to do.

“Right,” Crowley said, trying to drag himself out of the distraction of self-pity. “Do you mind telling me what’s happening?”

“Something went wrong,” Aziraphale said, still facing straight ahead. “I don’t know what, but the party’s stopped. People are scared.”

Angels and demons both had a degree of insight into the way the humans around them were feeling. Naturally, Aziraphale was always better equipped to sense them at their most virtuous and content, their most loving and faithful. Crowley was the opposite. He could tell when they were hateful, when they were taken with greed and vice and selfishness. Most of the time he could choose not to look, but in those places where humans made art of cruelty the sensations hung like a miasma in the air, thick enough to notice even when he didn’t want to. Tonight, though, Crowley chose to feel. He closed his corporation’s eyes and felt around with his more inhuman senses.

The one thing that he and Aziraphale shared the ability to regularly and clearly sense from the humans was fear. It wasn’t a vice or a virtue, it was something purely animal, and it was probably one of the most useful emotions the average Heavenly or Hellish field agent could learn to pick up on if they wanted to make their jobs easier. The thing was, when a human was at their lowest, in pain and afraid, they were most susceptible to being swayed towards a path of righteousness or wickedness.

It had been a few thousand years before they talked about it, before they had been able to make the connection and notice that shared thing they could both feel in the world around them. The story had come out at the bottom of a jug of ale they shared after witnessing the same stupid battle, and Aziraphale had whispered that he always hated knowing how afraid they all felt before they died, and Crowley had watched him with unfocused eyes and wondered why She had decided to give that gift to the angels She actually seemed to still _like_.

_“S’we’re like vultures, then,”_ he’d said, flapping his hands like wings. _“Great big feathery arseholes circling overhead, waiting t’see if we can see one that’s wounded.”_

_“That might be how demons do it,”_ Aziraphale had countered, swaying where he sat. _“S’not how angels do it. We’re not sc… scavengers. It just helps. See who needs… you know. Blessings. Comfort.”_

_“You mean see who’s weak. Who you can ssssave. It’s the same thing, angel. Just getting more souls for your ssside.”_

This night, as he emerged from the underbelly of the Stockholm Opera House, Crowley reached out and felt what Aziraphale must have felt, what had been so alarming as to have shaken him out of their ecstasies.

Fear. Pain. Confusion. Anger. Grief. And then, swirling in that mixture like drops of oil in water, a tang of cruelty that Crowley was sure was his alone to perceive.

“Someone’s dying,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley could feel that, too.

He opened his eyes and shut the rest out.

A figure dressed all in black pushed past them down the narrow hallway, nearly crashing into them as he came scrabbling around the corner like he was being chased by the armies of Hell. The stranger in the domino hood grabbed Crowley’s wrist and tried to drag him away with him, but Crowley wrenched his hand free.

_“Run, you idiot!”_ The man’s voice was low and breathless, frantic with fear and what sounded like exhilaration.

“What’s happened?” Aziraphale asked.

Between the costume and the dim lighting, it was hard to see any expression on the human's face, but his head swiveled between the two of them even as he took a few hesitant steps backwards down the hall, clearly weighing his option of just breaking into a sprint.

_“It’s done!”_ He hissed. _“It’s over, he did it. Get the fuck out of here before they catch you, too!”_

When he saw that Crowley wasn't following behind him, the human swore under his breath and fled deeper into the bowels of the opera house. They spared but a moment to watch him go, and then Aziraphale was hurrying on ahead again and once again Crowley followed.

The foyer, once they finally made it there, was oppressively bright and loud after the subdued stillness of the back passages they’d just gone through. It was every bit as crowded now as it had been when they’d left, but the air of gaiety and celebration had since soured into what was very nearly mass panic. The informal delineation between sidelines and dance floor was eroded away, and people stood in clusters all across the room doing little besides worrying. There was shouting in some places, especially by the front doors of the opera house where a line of soldiers with swords and guns held at bay those members of the public pleading to leave. Some of the humans were sitting on the floor crying, all courtly decorum forgotten.

Most everyone had taken off their masks by now, and it only took a little searching to see why: a small group of the dominoes had been taken aside by the king’s police, hoods pushed back and unmasked, their hands in irons. Crowley had seen his fair share of assassinations over the years, and recognized the scene playing out before them with resigned familiarity. A glance upwards at the king’s box—empty now, save for a soldier with a hand on the pistol at his waist—confirmed his suspicions.

Their attention was drawn by a commotion at the foot of the grand staircase. A group of humans was pressing forward, clamoring for news of their monarch, and the officer at the center of the mob was growing panicked. Crowley saw the gleam of metal in the lamplight as the man drew his sabre, shouting at them to step away. There was a clatter of steel on stone as something was kicked about by the retreating crowd, and as the space at the foot of the stairs opened up Crowley spotted a slick of blood on the marble, and a pair of pistols left behind.

“Well,” Crowley said, turning back to Aziraphale. “This is less than ideal.”

The angel was twisting the fabric of his waistcoat so hard Crowley thought he might tear it. “I should have been here,” he whispered, not tearing his eyes away from the scene before them. “I shouldn’t have… shouldn’t have let myself get distracted.”

“Angel.” Crowley hesitated, but then put a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder. The touch seemed to startle him, but he didn’t pull away. “Humans kill other humans every day. You can’t stop all of them. They do what they want regardless of what we do.”

“There’s another one of them!” The shout came from somewhere in the crowd, and all eyes turned towards Aziraphale and Crowley.

_Well, actually,_ Crowley thought, with a glance down at his costume. _Maybe just me._

The nearest humans backed away from him like they could see his fangs and scales behind his mask, behind his human disguise, and the human with the sword called out for the other soldiers to hurry over.

_Less than ideal._

Crowley could make himself vanish from sight, make the humans forget they’d seen him. If he wanted to, he could send every one of the people in the foyer to the other side of the planet, or even straight down to Hell. That would be overkill, though, and definitely not the way Crowley preferred to handle things. This was inconvenient, an unexpected wrinkle, one more thing he had to deal with in an evening that was already spiraling wildly away from what he’d hoped for a moment that it could be.

But then, the officer started to advance on him, sabre levelled at his chest, and everything shifted.

Aziraphale stepped in front of Crowley, between his body and the human with the sword. His hands were empty, but he pivoted on his feet to assume the stance of a fencer, his shoulders tensed like he was preparing for a fight the human way. There was also an undeniable ferocity in his eyes that suggested he might change his mind and decide to smite the man into ash. Seeing him like this, Crowley was confronted again with the knowledge that while Aziraphale had built himself a soft life in the shape he desired, he had first been shaped by Her hands to be a warrior. A protector. A guardian.

If, in that moment, a blade wreathed in holy flame had appeared in the angel’s hand it would be less surprising than the notion that Aziraphale had chosen to protect, to _guard_ Crowley. Not with a miracle, or a clever trick—yes, they had gotten one another out of tight spots a number of times through the centuries, and it always made Crowley’s insides do decidedly undemonic things, but this was not that. This was Aziraphale putting his own beloved corporation between Crowley and danger. This was Aziraphale, seemingly ready to choose to fight—something by his own admission he despised doing— _for_ him.

Aziraphale’s eyes darted between the faces of the humans in front of him, scanning the room, looking for escape routes. Crowley followed his gaze to the front of the foyer, to the barricaded main door, then back towards to the hallway they’d just left.

“We passed a back exit,” Aziraphale murmured. “Go.”

Crowley wanted to argue, wanted to explain that he did not fear these humans or their weapons, but there was something in Aziraphale’s voice that convinced him to hold his tongue. Watching the angel and the crowd, ready to hurl himself at the first human to try to touch him, he began to walk backwards out of the foyer the way they’d entered. The attention of the humans turned away from them like water flowing around two stones in a river.

As Crowley crossed over the threshold into that side hallway, Aziraphale finally looked back and started to follow. With just a few steps, the angel was close enough to kiss him… close enough to see that all that earlier fury was still burning bright in his eyes.

“Was this you?” He asked, his voice low and hard. “Was this one of your... one of your _wiles_?”

“No!” Crowley shook his head, feeling that familiar twinge of hurt behind his ribs. “You know this isn’t my style, and besides! When would I have had the— _I’ve been a bit busy, angel._ ”

Aziraphale took a step back, staring at him in growing horror. “Was this all—was I just a-a… a _distraction_ for you? An _alibi?_ ”

The pain grew inside his chest, hotter and sharper than before, making it harder to breathe, like the point of a spear had cracked all the way through his ribcage and punctured one of his unnecessary, all-too-fragile lungs. He would rather take the angel’s blame for human wrong a million times over—rather take a blow from that flaming sword, even—than hear Aziraphale imply that what they’d done, what had been the best night of his life in nearly six millennia, had been part of some _trick_ on Hell’s behalf.

It _hurt_ , because it made him look past the sad fledgling growth of hope that he’d nurtured over the centuries and see, _really see_ , how Aziraphale truly thought of him. How deeply Aziraphale believed that the two of them were fundamentally different, that his first instinct was to assume whatever Crowley did must be wrong, because _Crowley_ was wrong. It _ached_ , because it spoke to something deep down inside Crowley himself, something that pooled in those neglected parts of himself like rot, that told him that no matter what he did or what he wanted, he could never be _right_. That no matter what his intentions were, he would always be a danger to Aziraphale, all because of _who he was_.

“ _No!_ ” Here in the cramped wood-and-brick hallway, away from the marble expanse of the foyer, the shout did not echo. It lingered around them, poured into the space that had been ripped open between them, a wound never quite allowed to scar.

“Then how did they _know you?_ ” The anger was fading from Aziraphale’s voice, his posture crumbling out of its defensive stance. “Those humans… that _man_ , he spoke to you. If you weren’t involved, how did they know you?”

There were lots of things Crowley could have said to that, some of which he even wanted to say. Very few of those things would be helpful in the moment, though. There were so many conversations they just could not have— _not yet_ , he thought when he was being hopeful. _Not ever_ , when he was being realistic. He swallowed back those other pointless words and gave an answer that was equal parts true and shallow.

“I think it’s just the costume.”

For a moment, they just stared at each other, standing close together and breathing hard. At last, Aziraphale spoke. “You need to go. Go back to your flat, Crowley. I have to stay, I have to help. We can discuss this later.”

As hurt as he was, the angel’s _“later”_ sent a thrill through him. _It wasn't ruined. It wasn't too broken to fix._

A shock of angelic power, white-hot and searing, spiked through Crowley's infernal senses like a migraine and left him wincing. It was strong, whatever it was, and seemed to have originated back the way they’d left, either in the foyer or outside the opera house on the street. It was also very obviously _not_ something Aziraphale had done, judging by the surprise on the angel’s face and the unfamiliarity of the presence.

_“Go!”_ Aziraphale hissed, looking between Crowley’s face and the long hallway ahead of them, the back exit still far from sight. For a brief, stupid instant, Crowley found himself rooted to the spot.

While Crowley froze, Aziraphale must have opted to flee. He was terrified, that much was obvious. Crowley saw it in his eyes and felt it in the trembling of his hands when he opened his arms and lifted Crowley off of his feet. He barely had time to register that he'd been picked up, let alone react to it, before he found himself hoisted over the angel's shoulder.

_“Run!”_ The angel's voice hissed in his ear as he sprinted towards something Crowley could not see. “You have to get out of here. No miracles, they’ll find you. They can't know you were here.”

Crowley felt himself shifted, broad hands gripping the backs of his thighs to provide support as he was moved to where he could face the angel again. His mouth was hanging open, incapable of saying a single word as he felt Aziraphale back him into a wall. He felt like he was weightless, like the angel wasn't straining in the slightest as he lifted Crowley up higher even than his own head, and though the thrill of the experience was dampened by Crowley's current panic and confusion, he dimly registered that this would be a memory to revisit _later_. His back was dragged against rough brick that scratched at the silk of his coat, and then was pushed against icy cold glass that made him hiss and recoil from the chill. He chanced a glance over his shoulder—the angel had him pressed against a semicircular window near the top of the hallway wall.

_“Sorry about this, dear boy.”_ Crowley looked back down into Aziraphale’s panic-stricken face one last time before the angel gave a hard shove. Crowley felt the latch dig into his back, felt it bend and break. He heard the whistling scream of the wind as the window was forced open, felt the cold sweep up his spine, and then he was falling backwards into freezing darkness.

As Crowley had only been pushed out of a ground floor window, he didn’t have very far to fall. Still, his previous experiences with angels shoving him off things and into freefall had, historically, not been great, and although this descent was a short one, it managed to pack in quite a lot of primal terror into the span of about half of a second. The landing was different this time, at least, though probably just as graceful. He landed hard on something soft in a tangle of limbs and immediately scrambled to right himself as the cold and wet began to sink through his clothes. There was a snowdrift piled against the side of the opera house just under the window, and by the time he’d flailed his way out of it he’d created a rather ridiculous-looking snow an… _well_. A snow demon.

Crowley hissed and cursed under his breath as he tried to brush the snow off of his breeches and the back of his tailcoat. Stumbling over his own boots where they sunk unevenly into the drifts, he tried to do what the angel asked, tried to run… but then he heard a voice behind him, through the window, calling Aziraphale’s name. _Gabriel_. He hurled himself down onto his knees, crouching low to stay out of sight, biting his lip to keep from making a sound as ice water soaked through his breeches and into his boots. His mind showed him a vision of himself trying to run, slipping on patches of hidden ice and making enough noise to draw attention to himself. He couldn’t be found here, he couldn’t risk their Arrangement, their— _whatever it was that had happened tonight_ —being discovered and implicating Aziraphale.

_Aziraphale_ … who was feet behind him, cornered in an empty hallway by the Archangel Gabriel himself. He’d arrived right after they’d… _oh fuck_. Was this it? Had they already been caught? They’d been so _fucking reckless_. No. _Crowley_ had been reckless. This should have never happened. He should have left, shouldn’t have dragged the angel down with him… they wouldn’t make him Fall for this, would they? No, they couldn’t. Crowley wouldn’t _let them_. He’d… he was a demon. He knew how to lie. He’d tell them it was a temptation… _no, worse than that_. That he’d _bewitched_ Aziraphale, that none of this was his fault. He’d manifest his wings and go crashing through that window before Gabriel could _touch_ Aziraphale.

Freshly fallen snow muffles sound. Crowley had been vaguely aware of that fact before this moment, but it was absolutely _infuriating_ to experience it personally like this. He hadn’t gotten very far from the window at all before dropping low to hide, but he could barely hear anything more than muffled voices through the crack where it hadn’t been closed all the way. There was nothing more to it, then. No other option. Crowley clenched his teeth and sank his bare hands into the snow, biting back the hiss that threatened to escape when the chill of the ice against his skin grew so cold it felt like it was burning. Slowly, _agonizingly slowly_ , he began to crawl on his hands and knees back towards the opera house.

His mind began to supply him with dozens of completely fucking useless ways he could theoretically warm himself up. Summon a bubble of heat just around his body. Turn all the snow clinging to his clothing into steam. Summon his overcoat and gloves from the coat check. All impossible, all _useless_ ideas because he couldn’t use his demonic powers without risking drawing Gabriel’s attention.

The only method left to him was the human way. He bit down hard to keep his teeth from chattering as his corporation began to shiver.

Crowley made it back to the exterior wall of the opera house and sat down in the snow, his back pressed flat against the cold stone, and breathed over his hands in shaky, frosty huffs that did barely anything to warm his numb fingers. The window was right above him, but couldn’t hear any yelling, just the back-and-forth patter of Gabriel and Aziraphale’s voices, too low for him to make out more than the occasional word. _Would there even be any yelling?_ Crowley wondered. _If this was it, if this was when they cast him out, would they yell at him?_ He remembered an awful lot of screaming from his own Fall, but a lot of that had been his own, and that of the other plummeting soon-to-be demons. By the time it was Crowley’s turn, Michael had gotten the whole hurling people to Hell business down to a science and tossed him out without very much in the way of fanfare.

He needed to be closer. He needed to be able to _hear_. How would he know if he needed to interfere if he didn’t _bloody know what was going on in there?_

He also knew he had to stay hidden. Gabriel could kill him, probably _would_ kill him if he was spotted, and if by some stroke of luck they’d managed to avoid detection so far, if he didn’t yet _know_ , Crowley couldn’t risk being seen near Aziraphale and courting Heaven’s suspicions.

And that's when he had an idea that was as terrible as it was brilliant. Ordinarily he would never have considered it, but the situation was desperate, and his options were limited. Demonic miracles were off the table, but there were still things Crowley could do without attracting attention, things that didn't alter reality but instead only altered himself. Gabriel wouldn't notice because he wouldn't need to draw on the power of Hell to do it. It wasn't a miracle, it was just part of who Crowley was.

His form shifted, _contracted_ , as he concentrated on making himself as small as he could, as unremarkable and easy to overlook as possible. When Crowley next looked up, the window was very, very far away. Thankfully, this version of his body was built for climbing.

In all his nearly six thousand years on Earth, Crowley had never been stupid enough to experiment with what it might feel like to crawl through snow as a snake. The cold was bad enough when he was human-shaped, but he could at least produce his own body heat. He was still, in a loose enough interpretation of the phrase, vaguely mammalian. Although it didn’t do _much_ to help him retain heat, the form that gave Crowley arms and legs also gave him warm blood and body hair. It also gave him a pair of extremely annoying nipples that liked to perk up and chafe against the inside of his shirt when it was chilly out, and sometimes— _not tonight, because he’d actually planned ahead for once_ —a set of genitals that liked to try to retract back inside his body like a frightened turtle.

Point being, he wasn’t great at keeping warm when he had all the features designed to do that. As a snake, with nothing but scales between him and the snow and blood that chilled in his veins in the cold night air, Crowley was, to put it eloquently, _fucked._

The gaps in the masonry were too small for him to crawl between the stones, but they were enough to give him something to grip. He climbed as quickly as he could up the wall, mindful of the slickness of the ice and the strength of the wind.

_“…they're gone. They escaped.”_

He only caught the last part of what Aziraphale had been saying, but the closer Crowley got to the window the more he could make out of what was being said. His hearing was different in this body—he felt sound more so than he actually _heard_ it—but he could understand the words now at least.

Gabriel's booming voice vibrated in his head, inside his bones. _“And why didn’t you smite it, Aziraphale?”_ What a git.

The cold made Crowley sluggish, made him feel like he was crawling through tree sap, but he knew he had to hurry. He was close, now. He only had a few more feet to climb.

_“The. The masks. Couldn't. Couldn't quite figure out…”_ Aziraphale was rambling, mumbling, and half of what he said was too quiet for Crowley to pick up. _“…Not in front of the humans…”_

The timid, placating tone of Aziraphale's voice ignited a flicker of anger inside him. _How dare you_ , Crowley thought. _How dare you make him feel small._ Aziraphale was a better angel than any of them.

_“…With the possibility of interference from the... other side, I needed to...”_ Aziraphale cleared his throat, then choked out the rest of his excuse. _“…Observe. Undetected.”_

The climb was exhausting, but Crowley at last made it to the bottom of the window. Here at last was a horizontal ledge, something to rest on while he listened, a place to coil up against the wind.

_“Are the humans unable to recognize you if the top half of your face is covered?”_

For fuck’s sake, Gabriel. It was a mask, not the bloody steam engine. They’d been around for literally thousands of years. It wasn’t like it was some new marvel of human ingenuity. Who put this great feathery idiot in charge of anything?

_“That is the idea, yes.”_

Right. God had. Crowley let out a huff that could have been a laugh. _Well, She's an idiot, too, then._ He buried the end of his snout beneath his coils, trying to block as much of his body as he could from the wind.

_“… dressing like that?”_

Gabriel’s voice again. Crowley jerked as he felt himself slipping. He'd... he'd lost his train of thought for a moment, had let his concentration lapse, and he'd started to slide off the ledge. That couldn’t happen. He had to stay alert.

There were carvings here, beneath the window. Decorations. He wedged his body as tightly as he could into the gaps, coiling around the shapes in the stone. He tentatively let his grip on the wall loosen, and yet he did not fall.

_Good_ , he thought, relaxing further still. Like this he could stop focusing on holding on, put all his attention on listening.

_“I don't know if you saw when you came in, but all the humans are wearing costumes here.”_ Aziraphale was talking again, still nervous but using that voice he used when he tried to make other people think they were clever for having to have simple things explained to them. Like he was letting the Archangel in on some advanced human-ology or some tosh like that. _“They... all disguised themselves as something else. I needed to fit in, by ah. By disguising myself, too.”_

_“Right. Well, what are you supposed to be disguised as?”_

_“I'm—well…”_ Aziraphale paused. Gabriel was an angel so clueless of even the most basic human customs that his botched annunciation job was part of the field agent training course in Hell now. Crowley was vaguely interested to hear Aziraphale try to explain his masquerade costume to Heaven’s densest angel. _“It isn't. It's not anything, really. Just different clothing combined with a mask.”_

Clever angel. The cleverest. Crowley let out another huff of laughter, then a giggle. He was so good at this. The words faded in and out, or maybe that was just Crowley’s ability to focus. So little of what he heard made sense, but it didn’t matter. Aziraphale was going to figure it out. They were going to make it. They were going to be alright. And when Aziraphale came back, Crowley was going to kiss him on his soft, clever face.

A shout. Aziraphale’s voice. Crowley’s head shot up like a periscope to look through the window, forgetting he was supposed to be hiding.

His angel’s back was to him, and he was shuffling away down the corridor in a little half-jog to catch up with Gabriel. Whatever he was saying, he was moving his hands a lot, and the Archangel looked… bored.

Crowley settled his head back down against the stone beneath the window, snuggling tighter into the crevices around his little resting spot, and let his muscles relax.

Yes. _Rest._ That was what he needed. The day had been so long, and so much had happened. Crowley was so tired, and the stone beneath his coils was so warm, the perfect rock to bask on. He wasn’t even shivering anymore.

Aziraphale didn’t seem like he needed the help, and Crowley would just make things worse if he got involved. What he needed to do now was wait right here for his angel to come back.

It wouldn’t hurt if he closed his eyes for just a second.

Aziraphale would be back soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Historical Note:**
> 
> On March 16th, 1792, King Gustav III of Sweden attended a masked ball held at the Stockholm Royal Opera House (dressed like [this,](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/Gustav_IIIs_maskeraddr%C3%A4kt_-_Livrustkammaren_-_24373.tif/lossy-page1-800px-Gustav_IIIs_maskeraddr%C3%A4kt_-_Livrustkammaren_-_24373.tif.jpg) by the way). A conspiracy within the Swedish nobility was underway to assassinate him and usher in a revolution in Sweden, and members of the plot and those sympathetic to it attended the ball dressed in black domino attire. When Gustav emerged from his box, he was shot by Jacob Johan Anckarström. According to several accounts I read, the sound of the gun did not immediately alert all the party goers, and the music and dancing continued for several minutes until word spread of the attack.
> 
> Although several conspirators were discovered at the opera house, Anckarström himself wouldn’t be implicated until later when a smith identified him by the pair of pistols he left behind. Gustav survived the initial attack, but later died of an infection on March 29th.
> 
> There was a **lot** more to the event than what was covered by Crowley’s limited point of view. For one, King Gustav had been warned via an anonymous letter to avoid the ball due to threats against his life, but he attended anyway. For another, although it was ultimately successful, significant portions of the night’s assassination attempt went awry, and the previous two attempts had failed. I really recommend reading up on this period, and about Gustav himself, if you’re not familiar with it already. Gustav III was a fascinating, though complicated, historical figure.
> 
> I played a little fast and loose with the timeline of the night—in reality, Gustav arrived at the opera house only about an hour before the attack—as well as some of the theatre architecture and placement of events within the building. There wasn’t enough detail in the elevations I was able to find online of the Old Gustavian Opera, so I borrowed a lot from other European opera houses of similar styles/periods that are still operational.
> 
> * * *
> 
>   
> Unless Aziraphale ends up having a whole lot more to say in his point of view section than he already has, the next chapter will be the last. Thank y'all so much for reading and for being so supportive of this project. <3


	8. Blankets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There is…” Aziraphale began, and then cleared his throat. “There is good news, this time. I think.”
> 
> Crowley watched the angel’s face, how something close to a smile was teasing at the corners of his mouth. Hope, then.
> 
> “You know,” he drawled. “What’s good news for you is rarely good news for me.”
> 
> “No,” Aziraphale said, and he shook his head again, harder. “But maybe it could be, this time?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (As a note, there is no actual sexual content in this chapter, but there is discussion of sex.)
> 
> Well, folks. This is it. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

The first thing Crowley noticed was a soft weight pressing down against his body. In those last fleeting seconds of dreams, he relaxed beneath the pressure of it, feeling safe and held and secure. As he edged towards consciousness, however, images of blond curls and warm thighs fading slowly from his mind, he stretched out his arms and legs and found them pinned.

Trapped. He was trapped. Terror flooding his corporation like a poison, he wrenched his mind away from the comfort of sleep and dreams and kicked out against whatever was binding him, thrashing like an animal in a trap.

His first panicked thought was of Hell, but then he remembered that last voice he’d heard… _Gabriel._ That smug bastard, he’d been there. Had he caught them? Was he here? Where was the angel? _I’ll tear your bloody wings off myself if you’ve hurt him, I will—_

Crowley hissed in discomfort as his foot broke free of whatever was holding him down and made contact with empty, frigid air. On instinct, he recoiled and dragged it back to the warmth.

_Warmth._

Whatever was holding him down was warm. Soft. Warm and soft and… furry?

He pressed his arms flat against his chest to try to force his racing heart to slow down, breathing shuddering breaths of cold air, willing the panic to subside enough to let him take stock of his surroundings. Looking around, wild-eyed, he failed to make sense of where he was. His eyes were all snake, he could feel it, he knew—

_He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses._

His mask was gone, his sunglasses were gone, his eyes were completely bare. That alone was enough to send him reeling all over again. He scrambled upright, pressing his back against the wall, his knees against his chest, shivering…

 _Wait._ He was sitting up. His arms were free. His legs were free. He wasn’t bound, he wasn’t held down, the weight on top of him was gone, that weight that had been… blankets?

Dropping a hand from his hummingbird chest, he ran his fingers against the topmost blanket of the stack. Feeling the weave of it, the roughness of the fibers against the pads of his fingertips. Proving to himself it was real. He clenched his teeth together to stop them from chattering.

Calm enough now to do more than thrash and hiss, he peeled his gaze away from the blankets on top of the bed— _he was in a bed?_ No, it was more than that. This was… this was his bed. His flat, the one above the little bookshop in Stockholm. Beside the bed, the little table, his glasses folded neatly on top. He seized at them like the drowning grab for driftwood, put them on with trembling hands between his eyes and the world.

His flat, his bed… but not his blankets. Looking at the base of the stack—small mountain, really—where it had been pushed back by his frantic kicking, he could see that perhaps the bottommost three had come from his flat. The rest weren’t his. Furs, quilts, thick feather duvets, woolen knits, intricately woven things with fringed edges… no wonder he’d felt so restrained, with all this stacked up on top of him.

A voice called out from somewhere beyond where he could see, making him jump.

“Crowley?” It sounded worried, it sounded like… _Aziraphale._

The angel appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, his expression shifting from alarm to relief when he laid eyes on the frantic, shivering demon pressed up against the headboard.

“A-an- _angel?”_ He asked, the word almost lost to another powerful shiver. His eyes scanned over his friend, looking for damage, for some kind of hurt. Aziraphale seemed… fine. He was dressed differently, in the same clothes he’d worn this morning for coffee, all blue and white, all applique and lace. There was something in his hands, some long, dark piece of fabric flopping around like it was heavy with damp. Crowley opened his mouth to taste the air with a ragged, shaky breath, feeling a roiling twist of fear and guilt building up in his stomach. He _looked_ fine, but was he fine? Was he burned? Were his feathers charred where they were hidden out of sight? Cold air rushed over his forked tongue and into his lungs, and he did not taste sulfur, burning feathers, decay or rot or blood or ash.

All he tasted was the smell of coffee.

“Crowley! You’re up, I didn’t expect—dear boy, what are you doing?” Aziraphale crossed the room, waving his hands at where Crowley had swung his legs over the edge of the bed, seemingly unwilling to touch him. “I must insist! Back in bed, this instant.”

“Angel, are y-you—” He swallowed, trying to force his corporation to stop shivering, but it seemed like it was acting without his input now. “Are you h-hurt?”

“Am _I_ hurt?” Aziraphale asked, pitch raising in disbelief. “I’m not the one who nearly discorporated! Get back under the blankets, you idiot!”

A warm, heavy hand on his shoulder. A second just behind his knee, lifting his foot off the floor. Crowley went pliant, let himself be moved. He even deigned to cooperate, just a bit, scooting down a little lower on the mattress so he could lie flat again. The angel waved a hand, that long piece of fabric flapping in his grip, and the blankets righted themselves again, settling over him with a weight that was now almost soothing instead of terrifying.

There… there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger. Aziraphale was seemingly unhurt, and _yes,_ Crowley was still bloody freezing and couldn’t stop his corporation from shivering, but he didn’t seem to be too worse for wear, either.

Right. So. Safe for the moment, maybe. That meant that there was probably time for _questions._ Crowley had a lot of questions. About Gabriel, about the opera house, about why they were in his flat, about _them._

Instead, serpent eyes drawn by the movement of the fabric in Aziraphale’s hand, he asked, “Is… are you holding my stocking?”

Aziraphale looked down at his hands, like he’d forgotten he had it with him, and then looked away. “Your—oh. Yes, well. You were. You were rather soaked and… well, it wouldn’t do to keep you in all your wet things. You—you wouldn’t stop shivering.”

For the first time since he’d woken, Crowley looked down at what he was wearing. True to the angel’s word, his costume from the ball was gone. Instead, he was dressed in some thick, cream-colored dressing gown with ruffles at the collar and sleeves.

 _“Angel,”_ He groaned. “You _didn’t.”_

“Relax, you ridiculous serpent,” Aziraphale said, forcing a laugh. “Your clothes are hanging to dry in front of the fire.”

His words jogged something in Crowley’s memory. “I was a snake.”

“You were,” the angel answered, twisting the stocking between his fingers. “Almost all the way back.”

“Almost?”

“You changed back halfway up the stairs, you abominable little terror. Ripped my shirt clean open. Lord knows _what_ your neighbors thought.” Crowley’s laughter at the absurdity of the image choked off in his throat as he recognized the implication of what Aziraphale had been saying— _he’d carried him back as a snake? Inside his shirt? Next to his skin?_

Aziraphale continued, resolutely ignoring Crowley’s gaping mouth. “I almost dropped you! It would have served you right, too. What were you _thinking,_ Crowley?”

“I guess I wasn’t thinking,” he managed. “If I was unconscious. Sorry about your shirt, though.”

 _“No._ I mean… why did you stay? I told you to run! We—you could have been— _it was a very close call,”_ Aziraphale stammered. “I knew—I could feel you were close. Still. I kept talking, hoping you would— _but you didn’t run!”_

Crowley’s brain was taking longer than usual to make the connection between the known facts of the situation. Gabriel had shown up, Crowley’d had to hide… well. First Aziraphale had tossed him out a window into a snowbank, and _then_ he’d hidden, and then Aziraphale… _stalled for him?_ Lied to an Archangel for him? True, Aziraphale lied to Gabriel in every report he’d sent in since the Arrangement began, and probably a good bit before then, too, but it was different hearing that he’d done it face-to-face. _For Crowley._

He shimmied further down beneath the blanket mound, deeper into the pocket of warmth in the bed, trying to forestall the inevitable shuddering that would come when he tried to speak.

“I didn’t want you getting in trouble.”

For a moment, the anxious frown on Aziraphale’s face softened, and his lips parted to say words he swallowed back down. “You shouldn’t have stayed,” he finally said, his voice rough and quiet. “You could have been seen. You almost discorporated.”

“I’m _fine,_ angel,” he groaned. “Stop fussing.”

“I didn’t know if you were going to wake up.”

There was something small and raw behind his words, something too real for Crowley to look at right now, so soon awake and still tired to the bone from the cold, and from everything that had happened in the night.

“How long was I asleep?” he asked, but what he meant was, _how long did you wait for me to wake?_

“Not long. A few hours, maybe,” Aziraphale said, casting a strained look towards the window. “It’s almost dawn…”

Crowley stifled a yawn. “What did Gabriel want?”

Aziraphale’s eyes flicked back towards him, and the pause before he spoke sounded like he was considering how much to say. “Just a check-in, really.” He gave a little humorless chuckle. “Wanted to—to see how I was getting on.”

“Right. And that’s all? He wasn’t mad about—” Crowley’s lips flattened into a thin, tight line, keeping the words _“you and me”_ inside his mouth where they couldn’t get out. “—about everything? The, uh. The assassination?”

The angel shook his head, stumbling over his words. “No. He wasn’t—he didn’t seem to be angry at all. About the, the whole situation. Disappointed, maybe. About how things… went.”

“Oh,” he said, and for a moment felt a twinge of irritation. Crowley had been lying to Hell for centuries, and for most of that time he’d convinced them he was a valuable field agent sowing discord up on Earth. On occasion, though, they had been disappointed in his work, and there had been no _“maybe”_ about it. They let their displeasure be known. And felt.

“There is…” Aziraphale began, and then cleared his throat. “There is good news, this time. I think.”

Crowley watched the angel’s face, how something close to a smile was teasing at the corners of his mouth. Hope, then.

“You know,” he drawled. “What’s good news for you is rarely good news for me.”

“No,” Aziraphale said, and he shook his head again, harder. “But maybe it could be, this time?”

Crowley’s traitorous heart took notice of that, and he propped himself up on his elbows, unable to resist the urge to get even a few inches closer.

“Yeah?”

“Do you—do you remember what we spoke about? Earlier tonight?”

He swallowed, his mouth dry. “Gonna have to be a bit more specific.”

“When I was talking with Gabriel—I had to keep talking with him, you see, and I remembered what you told me, I suppose, and I thought, _well, so long as I have to keep talking to him, what could it hurt?”_ Aziraphale was talking quickly, rambling, but it wasn’t nerves this time. It was excitement. “And I think he said it could take some time, but he didn’t—he didn’t say no, and I’m supposed to hear back about the details, soon, and—and I know you don’t like it when I thank you, so I won’t, but I will say I’m... I’m happy you asked about it.”

Crowley could only stare at him.

 _“A bookshop,”_ the angel whispered, with a glance up at the ceiling, like he was afraid the angels would hear and take it away again. “A permanent place to work. A—and, I suppose, to stay. When one isn’t… working.”

A dazed, dopey grin _didn’t_ spread across Crowley’s face at that, but it was a near miss. “Really? Good for you, angel. Where’ll you put it?”

If Aziraphale’s smile faltered, Crowley didn’t notice it. “London.”

“London,” he repeated, nodding. “You’ve always liked it there. Cold and rainy and miserable, so you have an excuse not to ever go outside.”

Crowley had intended to gently tease him, but Aziraphale gave a little wiggle of anticipation, and Crowley was doomed. He could picture it all with perfect clarity, so sharp it felt less like an exercise in imagination and more like a vision of the future. Shelves so tall he’d need a ladder, if he didn’t want to use a miracle in front of the humans, and packed full of all the books Aziraphale had squirrelled away over his nearly six-thousand year lifetime—as well as all the ones he’d acquire once he’d been given permission to own them openly. Chairs and couches so overstuffed Crowley would have to pretend to hate them, even as he nodded off to sleep in one and dribbled wine over the side of his glass and onto the plush carpets. Big windows to let the light in— _he deserved to live in sunlight_ —with thick curtains to draw when Crowley came ‘round. Then upstairs, wretchedly cozy with a fire always burning in the hearth, a flat with the softest feather mattress on the bed.

_Oh fuck._

All at once, it occurred to Crowley that he was in a bed. He was in a bed—his bed, specifically—and Aziraphale was _right there._ In his _bedroom,_ inches away, and underneath the mountain of blankets on top of him, Crowley was dressed in something quite loose. Very easy to ruck it up over his hips so he could better wrap his legs around that soft, strong midsection and pull the angel down into bed on top of him. He was still so cold, but Aziraphale wouldn’t be. Crowley knew _exactly_ how warm Aziraphale could feel, and if he could just get him out of those clothes, into the bed, and into _him,_ Crowley knew he’d feel warm, too.

He gazed up at the angel though half-lidded eyes, already imagining the lazy, liquid pleasure of being held and fucked and kissed, and being held again afterwards as he slept, and watched as Aziraphale’s hands fidgeted, smoothing and tugging at his clothes.

His clothes. The ones… from this morning. Not the costume. That multi-colored cape was gone, as was his mask. There were no more stars in his hair, no more stars anywhere. He’d traded dark velvet the color of the ink of space for blue wool and white stockings, for applique and lace. Nothing surprising, everything well within the bounds of his usual, everyday fashion. The meaning couldn’t be more clear if Aziraphale had shouted it.

The game was over, the _night_ was over, and they were back again to _everyday._

That’s what it had all been, of course. The dances, the stories of their imagined mortal lives… the kisses. The touches. The _sex_ … it was all pretend for Aziraphale. Little temptations he couldn’t allow himself otherwise. Things that would never have happened if the circumstances weren’t exactly right— _a crowd to blend in with, a disguise to hide behind, enough liquor flowing through the party to pretend it was an accident…_

He'd been so stupid not to understand that earlier, to not make note of the line the angel had drawn. Aziraphale had kept them both fully clothed. Masks on, yellow eyes and serpentine brand hidden from sight. Back-to front, so he didn't have to look too closely. There had been an illusion at work in the basement of the opera house. Crowley had felt it at the time, had forced himself to stay as still and silent as he could out of fear he would shatter it.

Now that it was over, now that they had stepped out of that dream and back into their lives, Crowley didn’t know what was supposed to happen next. With time and distance, with the sobering arrival of Gabriel on the scene… Crowley guessed that Aziraphale would now have to look back upon what he'd done, _and who he'd done it with_.

Crowley hoped that had been the point of the trick, the reason why Aziraphale had been pretending to be drunk. The best case scenario he could think of was that they'd part ways pretending not to remember that any of this happened, that Aziraphale would tell himself it had been a hazy tumble with a mortal stranger—painful, but so much better than the alternative, that Aziraphale wouldn’t be able to live with the thought that he’d sullied himself with the damned. He’d rather Aziraphale pretend the memory of tonight was just nothing more than a ghost of a thought at the bottom of a cup of _punsch_ , because the alternative would be that the angel would leave for good.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked, and with the way he was looking down at him, Crowley knew he must have done a poor job keeping his face neutral.

“M’fine,” he said. “Still a bit tired.”

“Oh.” The angel bit his lip and looked back over at the window. “Oh. I—I imagine you must be. It was a… it was quite a long day.”

It had been, and Crowley wasn’t lying. He was tired. He could easily imagine burrowing under these blankets and sleeping for a month—potentially with the aid of liquor.

“Yeah.”

“Crowley. There was—” Aziraphale’s voice went higher at the end, and Crowley braced himself for the inevitable. “There was one other thing Gabriel said.”

“What’s that?”

_Here it comes._

“I’m—I’m supposed to leave Stockholm. I’m needed in London.”

He nodded, swallowed. Nothing new. The same way it always went. The angel always left. Why would anything change now?

“When?”

Aziraphale’s fingers were drumming on his thigh, and he kept glancing back at the window. “Soon. Um. I might… might should have left by now, actually.”

“Right.” Crowley closed his eyes and swallowed again around the strange tightness in his throat that threatened to choke him. “Right, uh. Could you lock up on your way out?”

“Pardon?”

“Just. Just lock the door when you go. I’m going back to sleep.”

Aziraphale opened and closed his mouth, clearly thinking better of whatever it was he’d been about to say. “Yes. Yes of course. I can do that.”

Crowley made some noise of assent and nestled his face into the pillow. He couldn’t watch this, he couldn’t watch him leave this time. Not after tonight. Most nights he preferred to put himself to sleep the human way, but tonight—tonight, he couldn’t deal with being awake anymore. With a snap of his fingers, still chilled even beneath the blankets, he was asleep. 

* * *

  
**Several Hours Earlier**

As Aziraphale watched the window swing shut, he heard a booming, all-too cheerful voice call his name from down the hallway behind him. He plastered a serene smile on his face and tucked his heels together, turning around to face Gabriel with all the rigidity of a man facing a firing squad. Behind his back, he clasped his hands so hard it almost hurt.

“Hello, Gabriel,” he responded, praying to the Almighty above that his voice would remain steady. “What, ah, brings you to Stockholm this evening?”

Gabriel stepped closer, close enough for Aziraphale to see that the Archangel was smiling, but as usual, it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Do I need a reason to come down to Earth and see how our field agent is doing?”

“Of course not!” _Too quick, too panicked. Calm down._ “I just wondered if, ah. If it had to do with, ah. This… this _unpleasantness_ tonight, or if there was some… some other reason.”

Aziraphale was a _Principality,_ for Heaven’s sake! Built by Her very hand to wield a flaming sword, to protect, to defend… though, he supposed, the less said about the sword the better. But the rest he’d been good at! He’d gone to battle for Heaven, back Before the world was born, and he’d shown no fear in the face of Lucifer and his armies of rebels. He hadn’t _enjoyed_ it, of course, but he’d done what he’d had to. What he’d been _created_ to do.

Why, then, was he reduced to a frightened, stammering mess every time he had to stand before Gabriel and account for himself on Earth?

 _You know why,_ an unhelpful voice reminded him. _Because it’s not just yourself that you account for now._

The hallway was cold, and the wind whistled through the gap where the window hadn’t quite closed, and Aziraphale prayed that Crowley was far enough away by now, far enough to be safe.

Gabriel gave an exaggerated wince. “Tough luck. And we’d just gotten your report, too. I was going to congratulate you for blessing him. It was really looking like there was going to be some good stuff coming up from that one.”

“Is he—has the king died?”

“Not yet. But it’s just a matter of time.”

“Oh. That’s—that poor man...” The beginning of what Aziraphale was sure would have been a rather rambling statement about mortality and faith trailed off, insufficient in the face of the realization that Gabriel wasn’t looking at him anymore. He was looking around the hallway and past Aziraphale in a way that had his corporation threatening to break out in a far-too telling sweat.

“Aziraphale?”

“Yes, Gabriel?”

“Is there a demon here?”

Aziraphale felt a stab of panic. He didn't know why he'd asked that—did Hell have agents here on official business? He doubted that, or at least doubted that Crowley had known of it in advance. His demon's shock had seemed so real. Had Heaven _seen_ them? Could Gabriel… smell Crowley on his corporation? Could he sense the thrum of infernal power leftover from the dozen odd demonic miracles performed that night? If Aziraphale concentrated, he could still sense Crowley's presence, though it was faint. Did that mean he was far away? Cloaking himself somehow?

Too many questions, not enough time. Aziraphale felt as see-through and fragile as crystal. Best to tell the truth, then, or a version of it, and try to find out what the Archangel knew.

“There was, earlier. I—they're gone. They escaped.”

“And why didn’t you smite it, Aziraphale?”

_Oh, bugger._

“The. The masks. Couldn't. Couldn't quite figure out which one they were.” He tapped the side of his own and gave what he hoped would be a placating smile. “Didn't want to smite anyone—not in front of the humans, that is, and they kept hiding in the crowd.”

“Why are you wearing _that_?” Gabriel gave his costume a slow, disapproving once-over, and Aziraphale was reminded all at once how silly he looked, how frivolous the whole thing was. The cape wasn't even miracled, and he knew the Archangel could tell that from looking at it, could probably tell that Aziraphale had expended time and effort to make it himself. He felt very small, and wished he was dressed in his normal clothes.

“With a—with the possibility of interference from the... _other side_ , I needed to. Ah. Observe. Undetected.”

“And that outfit… worked, for that?” The Archangel squinted. “Are the humans unable to recognize you if the top half of your face is covered?”

“That is the idea, yes.”

“Humans are so stupid,” Gabriel chuckled, looking up towards Heaven. He then nodded down at Aziraphale’s corporation. “And the rest of it? Why bother dressing like that?”

“I don't know if you saw when you came in, but all the humans are wearing costumes here. They... all disguised themselves as something else. I needed to fit in, by ah. By disguising myself, too.”

The smile Gabriel offered was patronizing, like someone pretending to listen to the passionate ramblings of a child. “Right. Well, what are you supposed to be disguised as?”

Aziraphale bit the inside of his cheek. “I'm—well, it isn't. It's not anything, really. Just different clothing combined with a mask.”

Gabriel held out his hand, palm up. Aziraphale looked at it like it was a snake—well, like other people looked at snakes. People who didn’t spend their off time drinking and playing cards and watching plays with snakes.

When Aziraphale didn’t move, Gabriel cleared his throat. “Well, give it here, then.”

“Give… excuse me?”

“Your mask, Aziraphale. It’s not like you need it anymore.”

With hands he willed not to shake, Aziraphale untied the ribbon behind his head. _Is this how Crowley feels?_ He thought, looking up at the Archangel as he handed him the mask, suddenly feeling more naked than he should. _Is this how he feels without his glasses?_

Gabriel turned the mask over in his hand, examining it from all sides with an unreadable expression. It was a simple thing, black velvet ringed in silver stars, but Aziraphale had liked the way it looked. He’d even thought he looked _handsome_ in it this morning, when he’d looked at himself in his mirror. Now, seeing it in the hand of the Archangel, it looked crudely fashioned and inadequate. It made him anxious, as though from that one human item Gabriel would be able to divine all the ways _Aziraphale_ was crudely fashioned and inadequate.

“What… did you mean,” Aziraphale ventured. “That I wouldn’t need it anymore?”

“Oh!” Gabriel said, looking up from the mask like he’d been pulled from his concentration. “You’re being sent somewhere else.”

“Sent?”

“To London.”

“How—how soon will that be starting?”

“Soon.” Gabriel shrugged. “Passage on a ship has been arranged for you for in the morning. We’ve sent the details of your mission to your Stockholm residence.”

Aziraphale’s stomach clenched. It was after midnight. He’d been left with only _hours_ here, only _hours_ to find Crowley and figure out what… _whatever_ had happened tonight. Whatever would happen next. It was a conversation he dreaded having, but the idea of leaving Sweden, leaving _Crowley_ with no warning made him burn with guilt. Especially after what they’d done, and after they’d quarreled. He needed more _time_ …

“Someone has been hurt. _Grievously_ , Gabriel. And—chaos! There’s going to be chaos. Death of a king, social upheaval… Surely, I need to be here, to—to help, to deal with the aftermath—”

Gabriel put a heavy hand on his shoulder. It was a gesture that, to an outsider, probably would have looked comforting. Supportive, even. To Aziraphale, however, it felt like he was being pinned down. “You need to learn to think big-picture, Aziraphale. It's just one human, and one human, even a powerful one, isn't worth delaying for. You're needed elsewhere.”

“Right, yes. The. The Great Plan waits for no one.” Aziraphale said with a nervous chuckle.

“Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page,” Gabriel said, nodding. “Oh, and Aziraphale?”

“Yes, Gabriel?”

“You have sawdust on your clothing.”

Images came rushing to mind fast enough that Aziraphale nearly gasped. A sawdust-strewn dance floor. A pile of curtains in the shadows, velvety soft beneath his knees. He swallowed them down and smiled.

“Ah. I—I’d not noticed, but—”

“Earth,” Gabriel sighed, giving an amused grimace. “It’s filthy.”

Relief washed through him. “Right. Yes.”

“Remember. Tomorrow morning. You’re needed.”

With that, the Archangel turned to leave.

 _Once he’s gone, I can get back to Crowley’s flat_ , Aziraphale thought, his mind racing. _Try to explain things before I have to…_

_Crowley._

Crowley’s presence was still here. It was still _close_.

“Gabriel! Wait!” Aziraphale called, jogging to catch up and settling into what he hoped was a casual stride beside him. With every step he could walk with the Archangel away from that window, he was giving Crowley time. Time to… to _stop bloody doing whatever he was doing and run!_

“Yes?”

“I—I’d rather hoped, before I go, of course. I’d wanted— _London!_ There was a, a proposal of sorts I wanted to ask about. A—a kind of idea I thought of…”

Aziraphale stalled. He was vaguely aware of the words he was saying, of what he was asking for, but Gabriel seemed pleased with the direction the conversation was heading in. _Taking initiative_ , he dimly heard him say. He barely registered the fact that, against all odds, the Archangel hadn’t said no to his request for a bookshop and a flat—or, rather, a _base of operations_ , as he’d phrased it. All Aziraphale could really focus on was the fact that Crowley’s presence was still so very nearby, so near that if they slipped from their corporations the edges of Crowley’s true form would be able to touch the edges of Aziraphale’s. He was too close, he wasn’t running, and the more he concentrated, the more Aziraphale could tell that something was very, _very_ wrong with him. He felt… faint. Like a single ember of the fire he usually was, burning low enough to be snuffed out.

The seconds after Gabriel shot back up to Heaven felt like some of the longest of Aziraphale’s life. His imagination flooded with a million different possibilities of what had gone wrong, each more horrific than the last, but he couldn’t _do anything yet_. He had to wait. He couldn’t _risk it_. Gabriel often came back down a second time immediately after leaving, like he was hoping to catch Aziraphale in the act of some misdeed.

Once it felt like enough time had passed, Aziraphale hurried to the exit at the end of the hallway and out into the windy winter night. At first, he didn’t see anyone outside the opera house at all, and he almost gave up to go look for his demon inside. As he trudged through the snow piled up at the side of the building, though, he spotted him.

A black smudge on pale stone, wrapped like a vine around the scrolling carvings beneath the window. The Serpent of Eden, now a much smaller snake than Aziraphale had ever seen him be before. He took a breath of frigid air, preparing to scold Crowley for staying so close by, and then he noticed that Crowley wasn’t moving. There were snowflakes that had drifted onto his dark scales, unmelted. Touching a hand to those scales felt like touching ice, and still, he did not move.

He was alive, Aziraphale could sense that much, but he was clearly unconscious and very weak. Aziraphale warmed his hands with a miracle as much as he dared, as much as he thought he could get away with without sending Crowley’s body into shock, and then bit his lip, beginning the agonizingly slow process of pulling him free. Crowley had wedged himself so tightly between the stones and around the carving that Aziraphale couldn’t even get a finger behind him in places, and— _good Lord, he was frozen to the stone in a few places, too_. He worked as slowly as his panic would allow him, melting the ice with a thought and gently easing him free, dreading the idea of ripping any of his scales loose.

At last, he had him in hand. Barely a foot long, contorted into sharp, stiff angles, and still _not moving_.

Aziraphale needed to get him back to his flat, to get him _warm_ , but he didn’t dare transport them both across town. Not after Gabriel’s visit. No big miracles, nothing to attract Heaven’s attention back to him.

Crowley needed warmth and Aziraphale could provide it. He tore off his cravat and let it drop down into the snow at his feet, unbuttoned his shirt with far less care than he’d ever shown to an article of his clothing before, and slipped Crowley’s tiny, fragile corporation against the skin of his chest. He was so cold, but that wasn’t what made Aziraphale shiver. It was the fear, the nagging voice that told him he was too late, that he’d be discorporated and sent to Hell and never allowed to the surface again.

The stiffness in his coils eased as Aziraphale put distance between them and the opera house, but Crowley still did not stir or speak. Aziraphale was praying under his breath, bargaining with God to take mercy on the kindest of her Fallen children, when halfway up the stairs to Crowley’s flat he suddenly found himself with an armful of very leggy, very wet, still very unconscious human-shaped demon… not to mention a shirt and waistcoat ripped clean open to the waist.

Aziraphale began to feel better once he saw Crowley tucked in his bed, soggy clothes swapped for something warmer and dry, and then began to panic for a whole new reason. Crowley tended to be a hard sleeper, sometimes for years at a time, and Aziraphale was due to leave in only a few hours. He summoned Gabriel’s letter from his lodgings and read it back to front several times in quick succession. _Eight in the morning_. That’s when his ship would be leaving, and Heaven would want an explanation if he missed it.

 _Crowley would wake up alone_ , his guilt told him.

 _If he wakes up_ , his fear countered.

While the demon slept, Aziraphale bustled around his flat, trying to do anything and everything to keep his mind busy. Trying to stall, trying to be useful with whatever limited time he had left before he had to leave. He miracled himself a change of clothes, banishing his ruined costume, and felt a little more sure-footed once his shirt was no longer hanging open in tatters. He lit a fire in the stove in the kitchen and hung up all of Crowley’s wet clothes, by hand, in front of it to dry. Then, while he was standing in front of the stove he decided to hunt around through Crowley’s cabinets for the copper pot he knew the demon kept on hand, for whatever coffee beans he had left over from this morning— _Was it only this morning? It feels a lifetime ago. So much has changed._

More than anything, though, Aziraphale checked in on Crowley. Each time he went back into the bedroom, his demon was still asleep, though he seemed to be stirring more now than he had. _Good_ , he thought, as if he had any knowledge of medicine or what to do for someone who’d frozen himself to a wall as a snake. _He’s not quite so still anymore._

Each time he went in the bedroom, Aziraphale pulled another blanket from the firmament and draped it across the bed. When the mountain of blankets had grown so tall as to be ridiculous, Aziraphale made himself wait by the stove. It was so quiet in the flat, and all the little noises felt so loud. The soft dripping of the drying clothes onto the floorboards. The crackle of a log in the stove. The simmering of water coming to a boil in the pot— _almost missed it, almost waited too long, almost burned his coffee_. The quietest thing, though, was the thing he most wanted to hear: the slow, steady sound of breathing from the other room.

Aziraphale forced himself to breathe, too, and waited as long as he dared, counting out every second. Dawn was fast approaching, and he was trapped. If Crowley was still asleep when the sun rose, there would be nothing else for it but to leave him here. He couldn’t stay with him, couldn’t wait for him to wake, because if that boat left in the morning without Aziraphale on it, he risked the other angels coming back to look for him. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t risk bringing that down on Crowley, especially not like this. Not when he was sleeping and couldn’t defend himself, couldn’t even see it coming…

_This is all my fault._

He was an _angel_ , for Heaven’s sake. One of Her soldiers. The Guardian of the bloody Eastern Gate. He was supposed to be stronger than this. Supposed to be able to _protect_. Supposed to be a guide for humanity. How could he do that, any of that, if he couldn’t even withstand a little temptation? He couldn’t even blame Crowley for that—not that he wasn’t temptation made flesh, of course not, the demon was excellent at his job. But that was just it. Temptation was Crowley’s _job_ , and it was very clear that everything that had happened over the course of the night had happened very much off the clock. If any tempting had happened, it had started and stopped within Aziraphale alone.

He just couldn’t keep his hands to himself, could he? _Idiot. Selfish idiot_. They could have been caught. Crowley could have been _killed_. Discorporated, too, of course—that foolishness in the snow, at least, was all Crowley’s doing. But _Gabriel_. He’d been there, feet away. He could have blasted the poor snake back to Hell, could have melted him out of existence— _would have_ , if he’d appeared a few minutes earlier, had seen them in that compromising position. The position _Aziraphale_ had put them in.

_This cannot happen again._

It couldn’t. Once was foolhardy and dangerous, more than perhaps anything they’d done as a part of the Arrangement. Once shouldn’t have happened… and yet, it had.

An angel wasn’t supposed to eat human food, drink human alcohol, partake in human sex. Aziraphale had never been good at avoiding any of those other things, and he thought now, with a sinking, twisting feeling, that he might prove to be even worse at avoiding sex with Crowley than he was at anything else. He’d kept him at arm’s length for so long, lied to him, belittled him, denied their friendship… and for what? It was supposed to keep him safe for as long as he could. It was supposed to keep them _both_ safe.

The best thing to do would to be to stop thinking about it, to put it from his mind. But tonight… Tonight, the memories were far too fresh, too sharp. With time, he thought he might just about manage to put those memories away, like he always had in the past. They always came back, though. Unbidden, when he least expected it. When the time between their meetings stretched from years to decades, when he saw Crowley everywhere but right in front of him...

At times, it seemed all Aziraphale could think about was red hair. He would see it in crowds and struggle to tamp down the beaming smile that always came to his face before he could help it, though nearly every time he had only just spotted a red-haired human. He would see it in art galleries, peering closer at the ridges of oil paint clinging to the canvas and asking himself, _is this another of yours, my dear?_ He always told himself he did not envy the artists—Crowley’s people, whenever he got the choice of where he went and who he saw, no matter the time or the place—for who could see that face and not want to render it somewhere, indelible and eternal, not want to _keep it_ , however one could?

Aziraphale does not sleep, but that does not mean he does not dream. His memories were sharp and clear—every one made here on Earth, at any rate—and among the record of endless mundane days he had little need to remember, and the litany of horrors he wished he could forget, there were certain images that he truly treasured. These memories were all precious things to be taken out and looked at whenever he pleased, but just because they could be summoned at his pleasure did not mean they never arose of their own will.

A thousand drunken, sharp-toothed smiles, beginning with that first one, lips stained with the juice of fallen fruit they’d found in the first garden they’d been in together since Eden.

A pair of brilliant yellow eyes, fixed on his, daring him to look back, leaving him breathless even as they reminded him of the danger this courted.

And, _damn him_ , red hair. Red hair of every length, every style. Long and coiled, shining in the last sunbeams before the rainclouds came. Cropped short, ringed in silver laurels glinting in the moonlight. Plastered wet against his face, clinging to his neck. Even that ridiculous little beard he’d grown— _like a goat, for Heaven’s sake_ —that Aziraphale remembered wanting to wrap his fingers around and _tug_ , to pull him down the three inches he needed to before he could get his mouth on him.

 _Of course_ , his mind supplied most unhelpfully, _you do know that_ all _of his hair is red_. It was far from the first time that thought had made itself known. They’d both seen each other unclothed many times over the centuries, in times when nakedness was less frowned upon by the human societies they’d had to fit into. The last time had been on the banks of the _Río Azul_ , as Crowley had swam to stay cool on a hot afternoon.

Aziraphale hadn’t looked tonight, of course, when he’d needed to get the demon out of his clothes, before the frost in the folds of the fabric could freeze his skin. It would have been a terrible violation of trust. He’d snapped his fingers and replaced the whole kit with a thick dressing gown. No touch necessary, save for laying the poor creature down on the mattress.

So, he hadn’t looked. Not when Crowley had been shivering apart in his arms… for the second time that night, or for the first. He’d told himself, in the nonsense logic of the truly desperate, that if he did not look it wouldn’t be as real. Even counting tonight, this terrible mistake he’d made that had nearly cost them both so much, he hadn’t seen the demon nude in nearly a thousand years. Not since it had become a _problem_. He’d tried to avoid touching him for as long, but Aziraphale was weak. Tonight proved that.

The trouble with being starved for touch and drowning in memories was that the mind would invent what it wanted to slake that need. If he couldn’t run his hands through that hair, his mind would simply do it for him. He didn’t have Crowley’s imagination, but he had enough. Enough to imagine what it might be like to finally, _finally_ fall to his knees, to press his nose into that patch of coarse red curls, to taste them, to know what they felt like against his cheeks as they got soaked with sweat and spit and—

He was well and truly fucked.

He knew that, understood it intimately. Had for centuries, to varying degrees. And now, there were new additions to the catalog of memories, things he’d have an even more impossible time trying to ignore. The taste of Crowley’s lips, and how gently he kissed. The way Aziraphale’s hands seemed made to hold his wiry body, to embrace him and lift him up and to not let go. The sound of breathy whimpers and stifled moans. How slick he was, that soft heat at the center of him when all the rest of him was sharp corners and hard lines. How it felt to have him come apart, the convulsions squeezing Aziraphale’s fingers, the knowledge that it had been _Aziraphale_ who made him feel like that. The feeling of _Crowley’s_ fingers on his own Effort, and the knowledge that if they had just kept going, he would have gotten to feel even more.

It was maddening. He’d done his best to protect himself, to protect them _both_ , but the fact that he’d stopped himself from twining his fingers through those red curls like he’d so often wanted to, that he hadn’t let himself look into those strange, captivating eyes the moment his lover came… _neither of those facts did much to stop him from thinking about doing it again, and doing it properly that time_.

He hadn't needed alcohol. It was intoxicating enough just knowing that for a night he had permission to look as long as he wanted to, to talk and smile and maybe even touch. He needed to stay sober because he caught himself thinking about how nice it would be to drag Crowley away to some darkened corner of the Opera House and find out, finally, what that snake tongue was capable of. He knew if he had let himself get well and truly drunk, he would have done something he regretted— _not that it mattered, in the end_. He still ended up going too far, crossing all those lines that they had both drawn over the centuries to keep themselves safe. And yet…

And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

Crowley, the sentimental old thing, had come up with a game for them to play, a way to talk around the rules they had to live within, and Aziraphale _wanted_. He wanted so strongly that he felt it like a physical weight in his chest, wanted that life they imagined. A life full of simple pleasures and simple responsibilities, a life where he could be with Crowley out in the open without having to hide and lie. The want kept growing bigger and bigger, and Aziraphale found himself getting greedy, asking for more and more from his dearest friend. He was terrified that in his lovesick daze he would say something he couldn’t take back, something that would make their game all too real and make them both have to look at the awful, hungering _love_ Aziraphale kept locked away as best he could.

So, he kept the alcohol flowing—never letting himself lose control—and built himself up an alibi.

 _Sorry, dear boy_ , he had imagined himself saying, _I was so drunk I can’t remember what I said_.

As awful as it would be, those lies, he hoped they’d be enough to help keep them safe. They had to maintain a distance between themselves, or Aziraphale would never be able to pry himself away. In the nonsense logic of the truly desperate, he told himself that if he just didn’t say the words, his love wasn’t really _real_ , that it was something that could be ignored and hidden and never found out. That if he didn’t say the words, he wouldn’t hurt the demon he’d loved since before he knew there even _were_ words for this thing that had grown inside him like a weed around his heart.

So, Aziraphale kept quiet. He kept quiet in the opera house, doing his best to show Crowley how loved he was without using words. He kept quiet in that painfully silent flat, twisting a stocking between his hands, and stared out the window, willing the sun not to rise.

* * *

  
**Three Weeks Later**

The next time Crowley opened his eyes, Aziraphale was gone, and Crowley wished he’d stayed asleep. His bed was too big, and he felt very small, and even with the blankets stacked on top of him he felt cold. Their weight, though no longer a source of fear, was no longer a source of comfort either, not now that he knew what it was like to be held. Crowley was alone now, in his flat that wasn’t _his_ , wasn’t anything more than just a place to stay, wasn’t—and would never be—a _home_.

He rolled over on his other side, ready to try to sleep the rest of the month… no, longer. Ready to sleep until Hell came to drag him back.

On the table beside his bed he found a tiny porcelain cup patterned with apple blossoms and his copper _cezve_. There was a faint trace of angelic power lingering there, and when he reached out to touch, the metal was hot beneath his fingertips.

With hands that shook more than he’d like to admit, he poured himself a small, strong cup of Turkish coffee—kept hot and fresh, _waiting for him_ —and shuddered as he felt the warmth against his lips. It clung to his tongue, bitter and sweet in equal measure, as the heat travelled down his throat to settle in his belly.

He was still cold, and part of him knew he probably always would be. Even still, as he cradled that tiny cup in between both palms and felt it sinking its heat into his skin, he dared to hope that a day might come when he would be warm.

* * *

  
**Paris, 1793**

Crowley’s work kept him busy for a year and a half, busy enough that he’d almost stopped counting the months that passed since that last night in Stockholm. It was grim work, work he shirked as often as he could, but he had to be seen to be doing _something_. Hell had not been pleased when the revolution and bloodshed he’d been asked to stir up in Sweden failed to materialize, and they’d tired of his rationalizations about how it was really the more evil thing to let a monarchy continue. So of course, when revolution in France had begun to shift from some vague, exciting movement hanging on the precipice of change to… well, to an awful lot of bodies being abruptly divested from the heads they’d previously been wearing… there was only one place they wanted Crowley to go.

It was frankly a lot to deal with, even for a demon, and he was almost sort of grateful that Aziraphale was off in London, hiding himself away in that bookshop he was building.

Until he wasn’t. Until he was so close Crowley could feel him at the edges of his true form. Until he was right in the middle of Paris doing Satan knows what while the streets ran slick with blood.

And then, like he always did, Crowley followed him. At times, it felt like all he knew how to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _If you like your coffee hot_  
> 
> 
> _Let me be your coffee pot_  
> 
> 
> _You call the shots babe_  
> 
> 
> _I just wanna be yours_  
> 
> 
> Y'all. I've had [I Wanna Be Yours](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaiLCYgWk3E) by the Arctic Monkeys stuck in my head for so long, and it's 100% my own fault.
> 
> Part three of this series is in the works, but it will be a while before it goes up. It will span more than one time period and so I'm going to be in a **deep** research hole for the next few weeks. In the meantime, I am going to start publishing one of two side stories I've been working on in the background. Depending on which prompt I end up taking on for the [Good AUmens](https://go-events.tumblr.com) event, the new story will either be a supernatural-focused historical Ineffable Wives AU or a more comedic, modern-day human AU. Either way, it'll hopefully be cool.
> 
> * * *
> 
>   
> I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has read, commented, kudo'd, read my WIP snippets, encouraged me, and so forth over the course of writing this beast. It has been a very strange, very emotional couple of months and this project and your kind words have been a light in the dark. Love to you all. <3 <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> The semester is over for the moment, and with just the one left beginning in January, I'm planning on using this time to write as much as I can. It's been a bit of a rough end of the year, and the amount of coffee I've consumed in just the last week alone could have killed a horse... but not only am I still alive, I can still wax poetic about **the beans**. 
> 
> Feel free to say hi in the comments, I always reply. <3


End file.
